Not a Very Christian Word was Uttered

Earlier this year we were given the great privilage

of being asked to make a Font bowl for 

  St Mary's Church Barrington.

 Three previous attempts had all ended up in failure. 

I added a deep foot rim to allow for the Lead plug 

in the base of the Font. 

I added a coil and then threw it  

I covered the rest of the bowl to allow it to dry evenly. 

Then I painted it with white slip on the inside

and Blue slip on the outside.

Not my choice, but the Churches.

When dry

Marion got to work on the decoration. 

We took some pictures and Marion set about

drawing the church from a picture.

Very hard work judging by the look on Marion's face . 

 But it was coming on well. 

I added the wording and rim decoration

 It survived the Biscuit firing

so we glazed it and hoped for the best. 

But as you can see it cracked yet again. 

 at this point both Marion & I 

said a few non Christian words.

But I am sure

you will forgive us.

after all it is the season of good will!

Some times you ask yourself WHY ?

First of all, We have been so busy, I haven't found time

to keep the blog up to date. So I apologize for that.

The weather has been horrible very, very wet and windy.

Barrington Court looks a bit like this all over.

 a couple of trees haven't been able to withstand the combination

of soaking wet ground and strong winds.

This is the top view of a walnut tree.

 The sheep don't seem to mind.

 and here is something I have never done before

someone asked me if i could have a go at making tea bowls.

 I've never made them before

so we shall have to see how they turn out.

 Now we have the freezing weather to cope with

 The consolation is that it's Dry

 But very cold.

 Once again these girls don't seem to mind.

 So we have so little stock in the showroom

that I had to cancel putting some work in at the 

Ilminster Art Centre Christmas show.

and we were going to not attend the Dunster Castle event.

But I convinced Marion we should go

more as a PR thing than anything.

This is all of our stock out on display!

I'm glad I said to Marion it was a PR thing

because we only sold about 6 pots in a five hour spell. 

and as it was last year it was blooming FREEZING!!

The worst thing is that today we are there again 

from 4pm - 9.30pm.

It's a great event and well worth the journey.

so come along and say hello.

They have forgotten the Christmas music so tonight I'm taking

my digital radio to put on smooth xmas.

It's not all bad, how's this for a view

and I think Marion worked out very quickly why I still wanted to go

the burgers just by our stand are just brilliant! 

Well you have to keep warm some how!

Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise

I was looking back at my Blog

to this time 4 years ago

and I found this puppet show I added

I thought the cast list includes the following

I thought the cast list is as follows:

Doug Fitch

Nic Collins

Ron Philbeck

Hannah Mcandrew

Matt Grimmit

see if you think the same.

I found a good Package-In Supplier

And I want to share it with you.

Out of the blue a few weeks ago

I received a phone call from a young lady

asking me if I used packaging products?

and if so could she give me a quote  for supply.

So I reeled off the sizes of the boxes I have been buying from

a local company.

Loose fill and bubble wrap sizes.

She then over the next few days sent me some prices

that were very good.

A 15cuft bag of loose fill  was costing me £16.00 a bag plus vat

 The one above is less than £7.00 plus vat

It's not the same as the other stuff I was buying which was this green stuff.

It's this white stuff.

But it does the same job for half the price. 

and the prices for card board boxes

were even better.

This is a double walled 10" x 10" that come in at 67p

and the smaller 9"x6"x6" single walled ones 

come in at just 16p each.

They do tapes as well.

They are well worth checking out.

and for the best possible prices you should email your

packaging list to 

aquigley@package-in.com

or give them a call and ask for Amy Quigley

she'll be well chuffed to pick up some new customers.

I'd like to point out at this stage that I don't have shares in the company

or anything else related to them.

But both Me & Marion were in sales and we know how hard

it is to do cold calling on the phone, so we are always prepared to

let someone have their say.

This time Amy's timing turned out to be spot on

and she has given us great service.

So Thank You Amy.

From Paul & Marion.

http://www.package-in.com/

Package-In Limited
Homefield Road
Haverhill
Suffolk
CB9 8QP

Tel: 01440 714036 | Fax: 0870 950 7930 | Email: info@package-in.com 

Delivering the Goods

As you may well know

it's been 

Busy, Busy, Busy

here at the workshop over the past few months.

In among the pots for the National Trust

I have been busy making stock for two of our customers.

Lipped bowls & Pancheons for the Cookery school

in the Cotswold's, and Jugs for Edwards & Todd

in Central London.

Setting off at 7am I was in the Cotswold's by 9.30

Delivering to the Cookery school.

When I got there the place was swarming with people from

channel four.

they were filming a new series that will be on telly next summer

You never know some of my pots might squeeze their way in.

Once I had made my delivery, 

it was off to Central London. 

Where I delivered these jugs to Edwards & Todd 

25a Museum street WC1 

This was the biggest delivery journey I had done in my new -sh 

car since we traded in the Hangover.

I was well chuffed that I got 47mpg

the Hangover was doing around 18mpg. 

and Miracles of all I found a parking space right outside the door.

It's just around the corner from the Craftsmen Potters Shop

which naturally I popped in for a look around,

and found this great Clive Bowen display.

This made me realize just how far I have yet still to go

in my pottery development.

(Well it keeps you on your toes).

Having just said that 

" I do still love the simplicity of my work."

and maybe just maybe I'll keep it that way.

 I'm very used to driving in central London

I did it for years when I was selling Ceramic tiles

 back in my past life.

 The journey back home takes me down the Mall

Past Buckingham Palace.

The flag was up so I think the Queen was in residence,

but I decided not to pop in for a cup of tea.

instead I carried on into Knightsbridge 

 Past Harrods

and out to the M3 and back down to Somerset

on the A303

This little chap was waiting for me in the showroom

this morning.

Marion has been busy putting scarf's

on the Ginger Bread men for this year.

it's only about 5 weeks to Christmas

and chance for a break.

I've not had any time off this year at all

and I really could do with a couple of weeks off,

but the run up to Christmas is going to be crazy.

Some Days Really Test You!

We woke up this morning to a temperature of 2 oc

and a Broken Boiler yet again.

No hot water & no heating.

So we made our way down to the workshop.

To find sheep were in the field outside the workshop

and as poor old Cadbury found out.

AN ELECTRIC FENCE!!!

Boy did he yelp!

The good news was that the first glaze firing had come out good. 

This was some of the finished load. 

 You can see here both the sheep and how cold it was.

 Caddy's yelp caught their attention.

 These two large utensil pots are thrown 13" tall

so that when they are finished they should be 11" tall x 7" wide

these will be on their way to Berlin.

 As You can see by this picture below

I gave this idea a few minutes thought.

I am trying to get all of these out of the kiln by the end of the week

but in the end I decided this was too risky,

and decided to do two biscuit firings, one after the other.

 Out of the firing came the last pot to complete our order 

from Barbados

We packed them up and here they are waiting to be collected

by the courier.

I couldn't help thinking about the film 

"Castaway" with Tom Hanks

I have this vision of these boxes washing up on some

desert island, and someone opening them

wishing for something to help them.

and finding a couple of Pancheon's a jug and a salt pig.

Oh Well at least they are useable.

For some unknown reason we were both on a downer today

and when your both on a downer

it's hard to pick yourselves back up.

But we will!