"Fall seven times stand up eight" - Japanese Proverb

This Year feels like it's been the hardest one of all

this is my eighth as a full time potter!

Retail sales seemed to have fallen off a cliff earlier this year

not just for us but for all of our friends in business as well.

It's at times like these that you have to re asses what is going on around you.

We decided we needed to play to our strengths and concentrate

on what we do best.

the run up to the Earth and Fire show at Rufford Abbey showed us all of the signs

that we should have pulled out, The small kiln failed

so I replaced the elements, it failed again,

Then the big kiln went bang mid firing, 

I called the electrician, only to find he had died suddenly four 

months earlier, I called our kiln engineer, only to find

he has cancer and is only working two days a week

but he dropped everything and came and fixed it.

so we carried on.

We worked until late in the night and I was up at 5am the next day sorting the big kiln out.

"The view at the workshop was stunning at 5am"

We then set off at 4.30am the next day to make it to the show on time.

on the way up the radio said the country had voted

out of Europe

we couldn't believe it how ridiculous!

we took some new pots

all with a bit more decoration than usual. 

I was very happy with the pots we took, some of my best yet.

But we had the worst show we had ever had, 

and we were both Totally Exhausted.

So Luckily the show was quickly followed by a weeks holiday in Spain.

What did we do in Spain?

Absolutely Nothing!

we didn't even talk about the pottery for the first 4 day's

what we needed was time out. 

Then we focused on the pottery and how we were going to

make things happen but still find time for a life outside of it.

Here is a good time to introduce Steve

Steve worked for Johnny Leach for a couple of years

some time ago.

and he comes in to help us out with our National Trust orders

he only comes in a few hours a week

but it takes some of the pressure off my shoulders.

We also have two people Les and Anne who will look after the showroom
for us when we are not in the workshop.
Turned out the first event we were invited to that we decided we would go to
Les and Ann had also been invited
I think you can put that one down to
"sods law"

But it gave us a chance to make that work life balance

and we loved it.

So we think we are now starting to find the right balance

between working hard but not letting life slip us by in the process.

above is what 300 Devon jugs look like all packed up

waiting for collection.

and the link below shows them now available

on the National Trust web site.

http://shop.nationaltrust.org.uk/barrington-pottery-devon-jug-sage/p8101

This was my favorite picture of a kiln just been unloaded

ready to be glazed and re loaded.

Here is the latest delivery of clay another tonne always feels good.

and we still find time to enjoy our life.

The moral of the story is

"just keep getting back up."