The Lakes ...

Cold , crisp and sunny with the first hint of spring in the air...wonderful!! Spent the day around lake windermere taking in the atmosphere and the views whilst Steve climbed the snow capped Bow Fell.... The photos tell it all.

Sailing weekend Harwich....

    Just drying out ( in more than one way) from our sailing weekend in Harwich, we all had a great sail on saturday alongside some monstrous container ships that looked like moving walls of steel, The weather on Sunday was terrible and the forcast bad so we packed up and left early. We stayed over in the old fire station which is now a hostel and were invited over to the Harwich Town Sailing club for a meal on friday eve along with a folk group to entertain us, it was such a lovely evening and they were all so friendly and welcoming.

    7 boats ( Wayfarers ) and 20 sailors in all, not a bad turnout for such a small fleet at Notts County... The tide was on the turn as we came in  and with the combination of sinking trailor wheels and very large waves the boat filled with water and we all had a bit of a dunking.

The snow has returned...Paradise Hill .

Just when we thought it was behind us for the year it has returned with a vengence, still extremely beautiful though, went for lovely long walk this morning across the virgin snow through the woods and up to Paradise Hill, not sure if that's its official name but great none the less, a beautiful spot and even more amazing in the snow, went in search of buzzards with my camera, saw 2 but too far far away for a good shot,did get yet another pic of my favourite old oak though which I will share with you, what a tree!

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.!