tuesday

Back to work today, collecting wood ready for Sunday's firing. It was a nice surprise to find the workshop all tidy - I forgot I'd given the place a bit of a clean up before leaving last week.

It feels like the events of the last few days were all a dream - a very good dream, but it's as if it didn't really happen and there I was today, back in the shed in the middle of Devon.

Well here's proof that it did happen.



Here we are outside Hannah's workshop. It's beautiful there, I thought my place was remote and secluded, but her place really is in the middle of nowhere - you can see her place on the next picture, it's part of that collection of farm buildings, away in the distance. There's so much space and scale to the countryside in Hannahland.



It's great to have visited and to have seen the place where all her wonderful pots are made. She's laid the concrete plinth in readiness to start building a wood kiln in the forthcoming weeks - watch this space, it's going to be an exciting development.



Here's part of the complex at Kindrogan Field Centre, where the event took place. I wish I'd had more time to explore, the surroundings were stunning.



And here's Hannah, decorating a puzzle jug that I made during the demo. We transported it with the other pots, back to her workshop. They didn't travel terribly well, nevertheless, Hannah will fire the ones that survived the journey and the best will be raffled at next year's event. We're going to do some more limited edition collaborative pieces at some stage in the future.



Matt came along to help me and spent the weekend kneading clay and supplying me with plenty of cups of tea. He did a bit of throwing too.



This is Fergus Stewart, one of the other demonstrators. He's a Scottish saltglaze potter from way up north, you can see his work here. We had a good few drinks with him over the weekend.

We also got to meet Nicola, who was a student with Alan Gaff who was tragically killed last year. It was good to meet her and it struck home how important it is to pass knowledge on, as his work continues to be made, through her hands.



On the Saturday evening there was a ceilidh. I'm not much of a dancer, but Hannah swung me around a bit and we caused some mayhem on the dancefloor with my lack of experience at such things. The Scottish Potters Association has been running for thirty five years and so to celebrate this history, the fancy dress had a seventies theme. We really were that blurred.



I overslept the next day and didn't get time to shave the ridiculous moustache off. In fact I still have it, much to Hil's delight - not, tee hee!

It was a fantastic weekend, spent with some lovely people, I had the best of times.

Now back to reality, with a mammoth day of glazing to look forward to tomorrow. Jess will be there so I'll get her to give me a hand. I'm going to the wood place again in the morning to collect some more, then we'll brick the door up on the kiln and get a fire in it to make sure it's good and dry for the weekend's firing.