The Shortest Day (Thank goodness)

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year. It's amazing and slightly scary that a year can have passed by so quickly since I wished you all the best in December 2011.

 It has been a pretty intensive year pottery wise.  I took on perhaps too much, and with no long balmy summer days it was hard to find an excuse to stop for long. So I'm actually looking forward to a short break over Christmas to recharge my batteries. The turn of the year always feels like a new beginning and I am looking forward to starting a completely new batch of work in January. I still have an order for two tables which will be great to getting going on.

This week I managed to glaze and pack both kilns so tomorrow fingers crossed I should have my orders finished.

The week was rather complicated with Rodger ending up in hospital with a weird fever, probably a virus, and he's still stuck there while they conduct loads of tests. Without my Mr Fixit to hand for advice I was scuppered when the  tiny test kiln in which I was trying to fast fire a couple of pots (which needed to catch the Christmas post), started sparking alarmingly. (This one won't make it, so sorry)!

Then to crown it all I managed to pick up the winter norovirus bug (probably from the hospital which is struggling with it), so Christmas has truly gone pear shaped! . But so far the world hasn't ended and a new beginning is just around the corner. Besides which it has given me an excuse to sit down, still feeling a little wobbly, and write a post.  However I am still quite happy it's going to be the shortest day!

This is the other owl dish. I do like his colours, I will have to remember that combination. But did I write it down?

I had this off cut from the first flow through the extruder when the clay is still settling down and splitting. What a lovely tree it made. despite a slight panic over whether the thing will settle into a good flow, I really love these first lengths and always save them for something special.