Deliveries and collections..and a bike ride!

 

Barter! This plate has gone to Gatehouse of Fleet..in return for two pieces of beautiful wood, this one and a planed one that I already have.

"Kind words are the music of the world"

On to Castle Douglas to collect my clock. The clockmaker had missed a worn bush when he overhauled it last year, so if it stopped before being re-wound it refused to tick!

Now it is ticking nicely and keeping good time. However being older and on its original spring, won't go the full seven days. It is good to have it back on my wall.

As we were in Castle Douglas, what better reason for a bike ride and exploring new roads to us.

We chose one of the routes from a local cycling leaflet, and headed for Palnackie on the water of Urr. 

An attractive and lively small village with chandlery, community run village shop, school, artist with bookshop and gallery, pub, glass workshop, nice older houses and new ones being built.

Plus it has a decent bus service! All this and only 7 miles from Castle Douglas and 3 from Dalbeattie.

The Harbour Dog

Chandlery with various vehicles!

Not sure when these last went out! The Harbour used to be flushed out every tide using a sluice gate on the burn that flows there.

This one, originally from St Malo, I think, but once called Willem, now La Malouine ,a metal ship restored as a training ship, last sailed out three weeks ago.

Looking towards the sea.

Pirate received a phone call while we were looking around...we were due to meet friends back in CD for lunch...they were heading for Dalbeattie, early! Luckily it is a flattish ride to there.

Lunch in the garden centre..and retrace wheeltracks as we wanted to explore Palnackie a little more and it was the least hilly way back to the car!!

I think we will return again, and park there for a walking explore - and not go on early closing day for the village shop!

SUN!!!!!

We have sun today!!  (but also hailstorms forecast....)

The Pirate is busy mowing, and I'm checking emails at a friend's house.   Still no news on the job front, but my pots ARE  selling in Crochendy Twrog in Maentwrog.

This is the shop with the pottery, run by Gill Owen and Trefor Owen.  The even better news is that Trefor is back throwing pots once more (at 76 I think).

So if you are between Porthmadog and Blaenau Ffestiniog and see the sign up in the large layby....go visit, it is well worth it.

Kiln Firing

Yesterday we finished packing the kiln.
It was a damp day, going to dank as we finished!!

So the kiln was fired on low for four hours or so- until it stopped steaming!!
Then close all vents and turn off until 5am.

I had a profitable morning, freegling two spare old mobile phones to match Mountain Man's old phone- spare bodies/batteries/chargers :-)

Then I joined the firing crew by 11.30am.
We are firing using bottled Propane gas. Firing by wood would be better, and give far better results, but what we get will be (hopefully) good and be a lot less hard work!! The youngest of us firing together is 54 years old....
Today was beautiful, and quite warm until mid-afternoon. I was out in Tshirt and jeans, collecting windfall apples and pears in the orchard in the Walled Garden there.

The kiln "did its stuff" and fired far better than half a year ago, and salting started, every ten minutes for two hours after a supper of salad from the garden, cheeses French and Local, Hummous, fresh baked bread.....

I left at 10pm, with a forty minute drive ahead of me, made longer by being dazzled by drivers with over-bright and/or undipped headlights.

Roll on Wednesday and kiln opening!!

Pots again!!

Today was the AGM of the South Wales Potters' association.

The bread took AGES to rise, but at last was baked in time to take for lunch.

The Carpenter is off to Germany to work for a few days.

The Oily One is at last getting oily again, and is restoring a car ready to sell it.

This morning's demonstration was by Joanna Howells who throws with porcelain and stoneware clays, and facets and alters the shapes. This is emphasized by fluid blue, white or green glazes.

Lunch was splendid, a simple buffet, mostly home-made.

Then thankfully a fairly brief meeting!!

Pots again

Today we reached the threequartersfull point on the kiln.

I arrived late, after starting the bread which will be baked first thing tomorrow.

As I drove towards Abergavenny, there appeared a huge rainbow- firmly rooted at the spot I was heading for!!

We had a marvelous lunch- Homemade (and grown) tomato soup then homegrown salad and eggs from the chickens in the orchard.

Rosemary has to bisque fire and glaze a few more pots, so packing finishes next Friday and firing starts early next Saturday.

I drove home with a large bag of huge cooking apples and headed straight for the allotment garden!
Sweetcorn to be picked, and chillis, rasberries, alpine strawberries, broccoli, and a few leeks lifted then the last of the carrots before the carrot fly decimates them.

Now I can smell Sweetcorn, Potatoes and Apples baking in the oven, just on ready......

Pots! and some gardening.

We have been glazing pots and mending the kiln for two days now and have started packing the kiln too- hopefully finishing tomorrow. Then we should be firing in a week's time when we have the gas.
This has meant the garden has taken a back seat in the order of things.
Today I have forgotten to shut the slightly open greenhouse and of course it is a cold night-
tough-I am not walking to a cold dark allotment, nearly ten minutes away!!
All the potatoes are lifted, the bean beds dug over. I need to decide where the alliums are to go, but the planting has been a little haphazard this year, tending too the "see a gap and fill it" method of rotation!!

I have been sorting and freegling some of the Geek Wizzard's excess belongings. I would like my living space back!!!!

Now the Carpenter is back from London, having had to drive there and back for an hour's work...how crazy can you get?! At least he is getting paid for it.

Life seems to be moving in the right direction, but I dread the winter.
Not just the shorter days, the rain and gloom, the frustration of not being in the garden or out on the bike.
The knowledge that Mountain Man will be staying up on his mountain for most of the time.
I miss him enough now, and I see him nearly every day.
Seeing him walk away up the track is hard.
Giving him a lift up to the edge of his fields and having to drive back down the mountain alone really hurts.

One day I will stay up there.

The sooner the better.

But I don't know how, yet.

pots

At last!!