Back to work at last.........sort of!!!

The ice on the windows  miraculously disappeard and I am ready, Beth is keeping  me company and very reluctantly let me take this pic of her coiling a jug, she's not at all sure that it could  possibly ever become a jug but I have faith.....it will be beautiful.....I  rolled some clay for a platter and set the kiln to fire tonight, did alot  of faffng around as well of course ready for tomorrow, still a bit too cold to hang around for too long at a time.

Back in Blighty

                                        Hoopoe

Azure Winged Magpie

Purple Gallinule

    A lovely week in the Portugese sun and then back to -2 degrees and a very iced up car. Had some fantastic walks around a beautiful nature reserve south of Almancil near Faro  saw some great bird rareties like  Purple Gallinule,  Little Bittern, Bluethroat, Glossy Ibis, Azure Winged Magpie, Hoopoe, Common Waxbills etc etc. Got some great shots too I'll post a few as I hav'nt got any pot pics yet, maybe I'll just  have this as my holiday blog......It was a great chill out week the weather was amazing and we discovered a fantastic cheap fish restaurant, a real gem of a place.

            Back to the workshop tomorrow for a few hours, can't see through the windows at the moment the ice is so thick on the inside.....I want to make pots !!!!!!!!!!!!

Away again, Hooray!!!

Leaving all this crap weather behind and off to Portugal tomorrow for the week,so much for getting on with my potting! I will make up for it when I ge back. Back on the 30th Jan .

Potting at last...

Oil filled radiator,halogen heater and fan heater all on at once and temperature went from 4 to 11 degrees C and stayed there....lots of windows and no insulation anywhere! roll on Spring. Beth joined me and we did manage to get the clay out and start but we also had alot of catching up to do as we had'nt seen each other over Christmas or new year. We then had to go warm up over a scrummy bowl of french onion soup with cheesy crouton topping, was yummy too, thanks Beth! All in a days potting of course, had to pop back later and line a large bowl with white slip. .......I'm glad I'm potting again.!

Snettisham RSPB site.

Found a few Pink  Footed geese on the path, had a very long chilly walk to the reserve hides, needed it too to walk off our huge Big Boys fried breakfast.

Brancaster...Sailing Weekend !!!!

Boat or no boat.....we chose the latter due to road conditions and a few other considerations, there were enough boats going over to share so we were'nt letting anyone down. 17  of us in total arrived at Burnham Deepdale bunkhouse, still extremely cold but did'nt seem to put anyone off getting up at 5.30am to catch the early tide. ( apart from me that is I was indeed the odd one or should I say sensible one out ! ) I managed a few trips to the pub found  a few lovely galleries and had a great romp around m favourite county. Norfolk was my home for a few years in a previous life .    We all had a fantastic weekend with some lovely people, ate and drank far too much and are going to repeat the exercise at the end of Feb but this time at Harwich and with our boat....hopefully!

Picking Up Wayfarer Day----Or not!

Supposed to be picking up the boat today but the slush and rain froze overnight  and now it's snowing again on top, pretty lethal out there now. We were planning on taking the boat to Brancaster for a long weekend sailing off the coast, we do it at the same time every year but the weather is never usually a problem....Have to decide tomorrow or friday on whether it will be possible to go or not.