And just like that… Stonehaven Folk Festival was over!
I have had a wonderful time 🙂
Storytelling at Stonehaven Tolbooth Museum
Bairns Scots Song Workshop
Family Storytelling
Adults Only Storytelling
Sunday Story Craft Workshop
and…
Petanque!
Seafood platter at the Ship!
AQUACEILIDH… and…
I’m going to blow my own trumpet here…. well my own comb n paper. Can announce that I am the 2026 WORLD PAPER N COMB CHAMPION!!
Thanks Festival and Tolbooth for having me along. A wonderful weekend! ❤
Also this weekend I’m going to be telling stories and running workshops at Stonehaven Folk Festival!
Friday 10th 7 to 8pm I’ll be telling Tales The Tide Brought In at the Stonehaven Tolbooth Museum
Saturday 11th I’ve got the bairns singing workshop and storytelling session (see below!)
And on the evening of Saturday 11th I’ll be telling tales for adults from 9 to 10pm before Susie’s singing session. Please note this will be at the Legion on Barclay Street and not the 65 Club as previous year.
Finally on Sunday 12th I have a workshop “Flotsam Fables and Driftwood Ditties” – this is fully booked, but if it’s successful I’m sure we can run it again in future years. 
Much fun in the sun yesterday at Deevale Community Gardens 3rd birthday, one of CFINE ‘s Music In The Gardens events! I did a Scots Song workshop and oor pal Bob Knight did a smashing set of Scottish songs and Americana.
A beautiful day in an amazing community garden with loads going on!
And of course Wee Imp covered me in sticky willy because she is a demon child 
I’ve had a grand afternoon teaching Scots Song for SC&T Youth in an Aberdeen City School. The team are off doing their fourth week of “Taster Sessions” in another school, so I was asked to visit and teach some Scots songs to a group of P7s who are having a bit of an activities week while others are off on their residential trip. P7s you say? So I chose a couple of supernatural ballads that are great for engaging an older age group.
You know it’s been a good session on murder/supernatural ballads when you move on to “Twa Corbies” with a class and you ask them “What would you do if there was a deid knight behind a dyke?”
And the answer is “Make a fiddle out of his corpse?”
They learned well.
(The image is Twa Corbies by Jessie M King, 1902)
Aye it’s only taken me a week to post these photos from last Saturday at Girvan Traditional Folk Festival !
On Saturday morning I had a brilliant time telling stories to wee fowk and their grown ups at Girvan Library – what a great bunch who had fun joining in! Then Natalie Chalmers and I had a spot at the Bobby Rob concert.
Later on it was back to Glasgow (no starting late in Girvan for sessions as the caravan was stuck in Abz!) where we had a relaxing walk along the Clyde with Wee Imp
Thanks Amy for the photos! 
Coming up on Saturday 11th April! I’m going to be running a Hand Puppet Workshop, Family Storytelling Session and a Family Scots Song Workshop – all at the Blackpots Pavilion in Whitehills!
The Hand Puppet workshop runs from 11am to 12pm – Learn to bring a hand puppet to life – Bring your own puppet or borrow one of Pauline’s many characters for the workshop. For bairns aged 5 and up and their grown ups. Unaccompanied grown ups are of course welcome an aa! 
£5
The family storytelling session runs from 1 to 2pm and costs £3. Come hear some tales of legendary leviathans,
boastful bosuns and mysterious mermaids! Suitable
for age 2 to 102! Any auller than that an I’m sure you hae a tale or two to tell
The family Scots Song workshop will run 3 to 4pm and costs £3. Sing yer hairts oot at this fun Scots song workshop for wee ones and their grown ups – again, unaccompanied grownups are aye welcome!
The pavillion pop up cafe will be open – hot dogs and drinks from £1.
I’m also chuffed tae be takkin part in the Scots Variety Concert in the Whitehills Village Hall at 7pm. I’ll be in fine company wi Doug Hay, Moira Stewart, the Portsoy Pipe Band, local highland dancers, Mike Blackburn, Aaron Clark and Graham Legge!
Book via Whitehills Playing Field on Facebook
or by calling Doug Hay on 07979 360238
As you can see from the second photo, it was a bright and sunny day up in Peterhead yesterday for my first visit to Meethill School as part of the Cultural Tides project organised by Aberdeenshire Museums Service !
I had great fun with the first two Doric workshops – an introduction to Doric in the morning where the P5 and 6 pupils had fun showing off how much Doric they knew, miming Doric words for eachother to guess (10/10 from what I saw!) and creating a Doric vocabulary for use in the other workshops.
In the afternoon they voted (very wisely!) for their favourite of 5 traditional songs connected with Peterheid and the surrounding area, decided what the song was “missing” and added a whole new verse (and a half! Watch this space)
I also got to see the school’s Storytelling Chair for the first time. (First photo) It was made by the folks at HMP Grampian in memory of Mr Black, who was the headteacher until 2024. there are amazing images from childrens’ books all over it and… some of my favourite Doric words!
A grand visit tae Faithlie Care Home in the Broch on Monday daen Doric ABCs for Doric Books
The theme this wik wis “Skweel” an we hid some grand songs an tales an blethers. We spoke aboot fit wi got intae trouble for fan wi were bairns. Aene quine got the tawse for forgettin her pencil!!
(An then it turned oot aene o the carers hid my mither as a teacher fan she wis a bairn!!)
Fit a grand visit tae the residents o Overdon Care Home in Kintore wi Sheena on Tuesday! This was a session organised by Doric Books far we’ve been daen oor Doric ABCs
Active, Blethers an Community Singing!
The theme this wik wis “Hame” an we hid stories aboot a wifie fa winted a bigger hoose (an mair aifter that), Purley Wurley Puddock an a hale bunch o sangs includin Sheena’s Washin Machine sang!
(Photo fae a ghostie nicht wi did a couple o year ago – we were ower busy tae tak photos on Tuesday!)
The things you learn about when teaching Scots Songs!
Last night I was teaching one of three Scots Song sessions at SC&T Youth – 16 amazing singers aged 6 to 11 – and I learned that there is PAPER made out of ELEPHANT POO!
This was all in the context of learning about “The Bonnie Ship The Diamond” of course – Elephant Poo Paper is much more sustainable than the whaling industry was. We like whales, and we like elephants and now we all like Elephant Poo Paper – apparently it feels like silk! 🙂
Pauline Cordiner - Scottish Storyteller 