Reasons to be cheerful? It feels like a normal day....

Today has felt like a normal day, with both of us doing work inside the pottery.

Yesterday we got an order for a few eggcups and bowls with mice which I said to the customer that we had in stock. Whoops - not the right colour.
So today I made some more to glaze in the right colour and rang up apologising....






Gerry has spent the morning mixing some thick slip (clay with iron oxide in it) to apply to the surface of his replica La Tene vases. The picture below (left) show him mixing and then sieving the clay to get rid of any impurities. After he had done this he applied the slip onto the leather hard vase, and is now waiting for it to dry before it gets fired.

After dinner we had to pack up a small order of mugs and a teapot to go down to Nottingham for another customer. During the lockdown, like many other samll businesses, we have noticed an increase, all be it a small one, of online orders. It takes quite a long time to pack up pots to send via a carrier. They have to be really carefully wrapped up in bubble wrap and polystyrene chips to avoid breakages, as you cannot get insurance for ceramics. So the boxes always look enormous for what they contain!

Then out for our daily exercise down to the Park. We always carry a couple of containers to water the newly planted wild flowers we have put down there - things like foxgloves, feverfew, violets, poppies .... and a bit of mint.