The Hard Rock was Hard, but look who won

After a torrentailly wet night and morning, things dried up just in time for the Hard Rock Challenge. It starts off with a 10 mile run followed by a 17 mile bike ride round Dalbeattie's Hard Rock MTB trail. I was posted to marshall at the top of one of the steepest decents. What excitement when the first bike through was no other than Hannah's Paul! Go Paul Go, (but take care please).

Here is Allie negotiating the nasty little rocky bit with two tree stumps. It was rather a too eventful place to marshall, as with nasty skiddy conditions the tricky stump produced one casualty who has to be taken off with a suspected broken collar bone, plus there was a broken ankle at the bottom of the next section. Blimey, making the prizes for the event was the easiest bit. These folk are nuts!


Well done to our very own, or rather Hannah's very own Paul and his runner Steven, winners of the mens team. Enjoy the mug!

..and Allie put up a great fight, winning first local woman in the individual competitors. Pipped to first overall by an unknown tri-athlete from Aberdeen. Sorry Allie -not these mugs again, she can't get away from them.

The herd of runners.
The final corner, photo finish.

Here is Rodger's consultant Ranjit, cruising along. A lot of local doctors seem to do the event, Dalbeattie clinic has two who take part. We were happy that Ranjit stuck to running only this year, we need him in one piece.

Hard Rock again and an Artistic Slug

I can't believe that a year has passed by since I was making last year's 'Hard Rock Challenge' prizes. But 49 mugs are all boxed up ready to be presented to the interpid winners of this gruelling duathlon this coming Sunday. I'm going to be marshalling at one of the posts (in the rain if the forecast is right), and shall be cheering on Allie who is doing both the run and the cycle and has been training hard. She has a good chance of winning one of the mugs which she helped to slip and put handles on.

The 'Noah series' dried out eventually and I'll unpack the bisc tomorrow. It has been so humid that I gave up waiting for them to dry out naturally and resorted to lighting the workshop stove just to get things moving. I hoped to get a few more new pieces finished for the Mainhill exhibition and time was ticking by with damp pots going nowhere.

It was becoming difficult to start anything else as I had a shelf traffic jam and the couple of days throwing last week which has been hogging the benches. What a great feeling to get the kiln packed, get everything moved up and order restored.

Perhaps I should employ this artistic slug to help with a little slip trailing?

The Hard Rock & a rocky time ahead.

The Hard Rock prizes went down really well. We watched the event at the weekend and here is my stalwart helper Allie on the ride and the run, coming in as first local woman! I cycled in this event last year but I did start to get a bit worried about injuries - and the more I worried the more I fell off. I now wear a ridiculous amount of body armour and don't look anything like as cool as Allie, but as a self emplyed potter with no personal insurance I reckon I just have to put up with looking like a medieval knight. As a child I always wanted to be one anyway so nothing has changed there.

I had a large throwing session, I didn't mean to make quite so much but the clay was JUST right and I got rather carried away. I have been meaning to throw some salad bowls for ages as I've had none in the showroom all summer.
I'd also run out of tri-vases, (great for people who can't arrange flowers very well, like me). Sometimes they are horrendous to throw but the clay being just perfect makes so much difference.At the same time I'm half way through a group of extruded dishes. I had a go at bending a dish sideways as it was being extruded. It was a bit tricky because the pugmill is so close to the wall, one side was easier than the other. But I do like the effect and I think it has potential.
In between all this making Allie unpacked the big kiln of bisc, but now there is no room anywhere for anything. I will have to finish off the decorating before we can glaze anyway so maybe we should have just left it all in the kiln... but then we have traffic jam problems, (and I have a pretty big workshop)! All the shelves and all the tables are covered and the day seems to have been spent moving things around.

I usually try to keep this blog pretty much to pottery related topics, but the truth is I am in a bit of a panic, trying to get so much made before Rodger's bone marrow transplant. He is going in to hosptial next Tuesday and will be there for a month or longer depending on how it goes. I will be taking the next few weeks off and staying in Glasgow where possible. I do anticipate a pretty difficult few months ahead, with juggling care and keeping home and work ticking over so I probably won't be posting too much, though Rodger has plans to write a transplant blog. ..if he is up to it. Watch this space!