Alhambra was an exhilarating evening of dance, poetry, storytelling and

song. Thanks to all who took part and the lovely sell out audience who

made the evening so special - Jaime said he felt Lorca's spirit in the

room!

One of our poets summed it up...

If you have come down to earth I would be very surprised. I'm not sure

we have. I have no idea how many shows I've been in or readings I've

done and very few are truly special. This one was. There was excitement,

electricity and a feeling we were doing something that mattered.

We are hoping to put it on again in a Southwest venue, so watch this

space.

Since then have hardly touched the ground, working with Openstorytellers (www.openstorytellers.org.uk) on a performance and workshop at the Glasgow Village Storytelling Festival (July 5), www.villagestorytelling.org./village-storytelling-festival/ , Creative Histories conference in Bristol (19th July), www.bristol.ac.uk/creative-histories.html and Social History of Learning Disabiliites conference (20-21st July), www.open.ac.uk/social-history-learning-disability-shld-conference

Manual Sign Acquisition by Children with Developmental Disabilities, edited by Nicola Grove and Kaisa Launonen, University of Helsinki, with Nova Publishers.

This is the first book to bring together research on hearing and deaf children who have special needs or developmental disabiltiies, using manual sign systems or sign languages.

Contributions are coming from all over the world...

A wonderful privilege to have been part of the Stories for Change project with Arts in Health.

http://stories-for-change.weebly.com/foster-carers.html

Working with Steve Killick, we ran workshops for foster carers and professionals working with families and looked after children. It was very humbling to hear the stories of resilience and achievement coming from these families. The three other projects - Daniel Morden with cancer patients, Jess Phillips and Prue Thimbley working in mental health, were really inspirational.

Everyone needs to go and see the Devil's Violin show Stolen, which will help us all survive these turbulent times.

http://www.thedevilsviolin.co.uk