Hen and Pig !

Just want to share this lovely photo with you all, spring has sprung in our garden and about time too after the winter we have just had.
    Last years pair of mallards have just returned to our garden pond  along with heaps of toads, the trees are in bud at last and the Forsythia and daffs are blooming. 
      

Creative Industries Grant....

Busy trying to spend this small but fantastic grant wisely, prioritising is not so easy when there are so many things I need, but at the moment I need stuff to build a decent Raku kiln i.e. Ceramic Fibre and an old oil drum, I could also do with a wall mounted clay  extruder to speed up my handbuilding....and a slab cutting harp and, and, and.....I could go on and on. They will also give me a bit for self promotion and photographs of work etc. but I don't know if I'm quite ready for that yet. We shall see!!!

Nearly April already.

Blogging has been a bit slow sorry folks!  Just beginning to settle down after all the swanning about in March, After the Lakes we  went down to the Cotswolds for a crazy weekend in a beautiful manor house with a lovely bunch of people to celebrate a friends 50th, she certainly did it in style. We then drove on to Croyde in north Devon for our annual get together with family.
   So all that galavanting behind me for a while I am eager to get on and play in the studio, I have to get my act together and produce some new work for the Halam Open Gardens weekend in June.

Our beautiful manor house!

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.