First asparagus and a progress on my works

Hello everyone. It has been a lovely day, bright and warm! Although I have spent most of the day at the desk typing away at my essay, we enjoyed two long dog walks under the sun. My essay is already about 10,000 words (yes, it is 6,000 word essay!)

Mike was busy again. He baked my favourite hazelnut biscotti this morning, and then popped out to get our first asparagus and a punnet of strawberries from a farm shop among all the other things he has been doing. Every year we usually live on asparagus for a month, but this year the season is late, and they are pricey. We only buy those harvested that morning. Asparagus is one of the great joys of my life here in England.

Our first asparagus

Mike's hazelnut biscotti. Very moreish!

After the lunch, we popped in the studio to check the Big Head. The kiln was still hot, so while I waited for it to cool down, I finally finished three works that had been on my shelves for months.

Big head - he went to re-firing immediately. 

 They are this wolf,

My first wolf!

 And a rabbit and a female figure. All should be ready Wednesday evening.

The female figure had been on the shelf for more than one year! 

So I had a productive time in the studio. I added more colours on the Big Head and he will be fired again. I like to build up colours by multiple firings. I can't remove colours once I put them, so I start with less, and add more and more. Sometimes I fire them four or five times!

Cat, little sweetie and another biscotti

Hello everyone. The weekend has passed so quickly. On Saturday, I didn't go to the workshop due to tight head, which has been troubling me for a week now. Instead I have made lots of test pieces over the weekend. The cat head is not attached to the pot below. The cat head looked very sad on the table, so I placed it on the pot.

My new cat head on top of memory pot. 

This is my test piece for smoke firing. First I made a just plain bean shaped test piece. But I couldn't help adding a face. Why not? Test pieces can be really sweet. I also made a tiny pet for him. They went to a large kiln this evening.    

Test piece for smoke firing

I woke up early this morning. At six! By seven thirty I had breakfast in the bed (thanks, Mike!). By eight, still in the bed, I finished reading business news. So I spent doing ceramics for the rest of the day. Throwing, shaping, and making until night.

Mike baked another batch of 600g almond biscotti yesterday. This time, it has no cinnamon.  Mike said American recipe has cinnamon, and also said that American people add cinnamon in coffee, too! Really? Do you, American people, add cinnamon in coffee? I have heard cinnamon tea, but not cinnamon coffee.

Mike's almond biscotti 600g

     

Cat with a bell and Mike's almond biscotti

Hello everyone. Winter is back. We even had a bit of snow falling this afternoon. I hope it won't get too bad tomorrow. I have finally finished assembling and making temporary mounts for my ceramic sculptures. I would be able to carry and display them safely for my presentation on Wednesday. I really wanted to show you some photos, but it was too dark to take good photographs today. Shame! I may have to wait for a couple days until proper daylight comes back. Forecast for Monday and Tuesday is for snow. : (

I have worked more on the head. It is not finished yet. Flash made him look a bit spookier.

Cat

Oh, I have to share these with you instead! Mike baked almond biscotti yesterday.

Mike's almond biscotti

I love them with dark coffee.

He bakes them twice. 

 

600g of almond biscotti.

He added 50% more almonds. I love almonds! 

Galette des rois, the Golden Compass and bargain dog toys.

Hello everyone. Canterbury has been drizzly and miserable lately. Despite the weather, Topaz and I went to the post office for posting this morning. The bowl with a rabbit was sold. It was a lovely one. Topaz loves walking to the post office. She is always tempted to walk into the green, but the ground has been so soggy that I stopped going there in autumn. But she still tries.

Yesterday Mike baked La galette des rois, a French pie traditionally eaten on the Twelfth night. He baked it last year as well. It was Raymond Blanc's recipe. It takes time, but it is easy to make (Mike's words).

Serve it warm.

It goes well with various drinks. My favouirte companion is desert wine, but we didn't have it, so had it with black coffee. Delicious almond cream is filled to the edge. We could eat the whole desert at one go, but we left a token slice for my treat for the next day. (We could not eat a full dinner after that)

While enjoying the galette. We watched The Golden Compass on TV. I caught a part of it last week, but wanted to watch it from the beginning  We both have enjoyed it. I would love to read the trilogy when I find time to read for pleasure, probably in the summer. In their world, humans have their daemons as animal shapes. The daemons are always at their humans' sides. So we imagined what animal would be our daemons. I said my mother's would be one of her many toy dogs, who circles around about 50 times whilst barking hysterically when he expects feeding time. Mike said mine would be our Scooter. African Timneh Grey parrot, sweet, strong willed and very talkative. I am convinced. I said Mike's would be Topaz. He fell into silence. I guess he was convinced but he didn't want to admit it!

Last Friday I walked to the studio after I got tired of waiting for the bus which didn't seem to come. On the High Street, I bought toys for our girls. They were £1.99 each. Bargains! Topaz is very happy with her red monster. But Pearl has ignored hers. She usually disembowels any toy within 10 minutes. But not this one. She gave it a glance and walked away. Mike said that Pearl likes furry ones; she often licks furry ones after shaking it. We imagine that she is making the skin soft by licking it so she could tear it open! It is a chilling sight.

Mine is a cute red monster. Topaz, Mike's daemon. 

Ughh, what does she think I am? Bee eater or honey bear? ( Pearl would be dish washer's daemon)

A very  unloved bee toy. 

Walk and Mike's first creme caramel

Hello everyone. Yesterday morning was finally sunny. Mike said there would be rain in the afternoon, so we took our dogs for a relatively long walk; they had been fed up with only short walks in the rain recently. The first thing that caught my eye were these early flowering crocus in our front garden. They were battered by rain and wind, still so pretty.

Early flowering crocus

 Topaz loves drives. Her most favourite place is inside the car. Pearl used to be scared of drives due to her motion sickness, but over the years she has finally overcome, and she is finally jumping into the car (only on the way to somewhere).

Let's go!

 Where did we go? This atmospheric place with sliver birch on the hill is on the university campus. We wanted to go somewhere dry and not muddy.

On deserted campus

 Pearl was keen to find something to chase. Look at her ears. She watches with her eyes and these jumbo ears.

How rude!

Mike with our pooches.

 There was this coniferous tree with yellow flowers and seeds. Bright and pretty.

The living wall is still alive! There were Helleborus niger flowering. How timely. Their common names is, of course, Christmas rose.

The living wall in winter

In the evening, Mike made creme caramel, one of my favourite deserts. This is one of the deserts I have made since we got together. But after watching Great Britain bake off, in which Mary Berry made a wonderful creme caramel, he decided to take charge. So here are Mike's very first creme caramels.

First, caramel

Next custard 

After 30 minutes in the oven, smooth beautiful creme caramel are done.  

Very smooth and lovely!

 

Little helpers, the tree and lots of sweets

Hello everyone. Mike, I and our dogs, Topaz and Pearl went to the post office to send the final post from my Etsy shop before Christmas. It is nice to have Mike and Pearl to walk with; I usually only take Topaz with me. The last post was a beautiful milky white whippet. I hope it will travel safely and get to the nice lady in Devon before the New Years Day.

Midori's little helpers. Pearl, Mike and topaz from left.

Me too! (Pumpkin the chicken) 

 Mike was excited to find his childhood favourite film, Lady and the tramp, is on TV this evening. We sat comfortably on the sofa and watched it. I cried at the end. Then we watched The snowman and the snowdog. It was nicely made, and we both cried a lot at the end. There are lots of good films for children during the holidays. I love children's films. It is my prime TV watching season!

A bumble bee in a Christmas rose

Our tree is lit up, thanks to Mike. We have been tidying up and cleaning the last two days. I have done a couple of hours of ceramics.

Our tree is lit up.

Mike has baked a pear tart before I woke up yesterday. It was so delicious with almond essence in it. We have already finished it! We have lots of sweets given and bought as well. I told my mother in Japan that we are a bit like Hansel and Gretel!  Mike has bought lots of ingredients for more baking.  I am a lucky one!

Mike's rich pear tart

Megumi sent us a box of sweets from Spain. They are 'Bombones' but not like bonbons we knew. They are truffles with raspberry, pistachio, chocolate and vanilla flavours. Delicate and delicious. Thanks Megumi!

Sweets from Spain

Pear tart, missing painting and blue 'white slip'

Hello everyone. Last night we let Pearl sleep on the landing. I ended up tucking her twice and got woken by her sleep barking once. In the afternoon, we shampooed her and washed her bedding, we let her sleep above a hot pipe on the landing so she wouldn't catch a cold. Today she went back to the lounge next to Topaz. We hope we can have a good nights sleep tonight.

Yesterday Mike took the afternoon off, and baked another pear tart. He bakes twice a week. It is so delicious that we finish it over a couple of days. It's not good for our waist lines. But who cares. : )

Mike's delicious pear tart

 From six to nine yesterday evening we did a peer critique. In the room I found these. They are amusing.

Did the painting go for a walk?

Very blue eye

And this rabbit is not amusing. I painted slip from a container labeled as ' White vitreous slip' in the studio. Look at this!

Very Blue white slip...

I can only guess that white slip was not white. It is rather blue 'white slip'. Aghhh. Making rocks, but the rest of ceramics (glazing, firing and all) really sucks!  I might try to paint underglaze on top. It can't make it worse, I suppose. Tears.

 

Apple frangipane tart, thought on school fee and calming whippet

Hello everyone. I hope you are all well. Mike and I caught a cold last week. It's the time of the year when students come back and all sorts of infection go around. Apparently sitting out for six hours in the clod studio to do workshop course yesterday didn't help. I had a heat pad, four layers for top, two layers of socks, and a pair of boots. Even with these layers, I felt unwell. Frankly speaking, my body is not made for this type of cold for such a long time.

Mike is as nice as usual, of course. He baked an apple tart with frangipane from Pumpkin's eggs and our own apples from the garden for me. My favourite apple desert. It is very delicious. We have already finished a half. : )

Can you see a slice? I stopped him serving it because I wanted to take this photo!

Today I recalled my days at Kent University. I took MA in social anthropology about 20 years ago. There were about a dozen of us, and academic staff were twice as many as us, including researchers. They were from Oxbridge and University of London.

My current art course has also a dozen students; two thirds are part time. There are two staff to look after us. Ummm. What a difference! After yesterday, I became a bit suspicious how I would be able to get value out of this course. Degree itself sounds good, but it won't make my art better. Every month they charge me about £315. So imagine I joined a club with £315 monthly fee. Practically I am paying £10 a day, including weekends. I would expect a lot from the club with this fee. My guess is that I will lose on this. In order to reduce a loss, I will make sure I would go to the ceramic studio whenever I can, and use their equipment and materials, which I don't have access at home. I will buy clay at a cheaper price from them. I will borrow books from the library (and read them!). I will find a hair salon with student discount!  Mondays are usually my studio day, but not tomorrow. I will rest at home and try to get better soon.

I made this whippet last night. I was stressed from the course (cold, long and not time-efficient) and felt miserable with a cold. I tried to calm myself by making this whippet. I was trying to be positive. It usually works, but not last night. Nonetheless, I liked her. When I saw her this morning after a restless nigh with sneeze, sore throat and blocked nose, I felt better. Her calm posture made me settled. I used a sample porcelain white stoneware grogged clay. It wasn't suitable for making this particular shape, so I struggled a bit, but I could manage in the end.  At this moment, I am thinking to use their white crackle glaze or my own clear crackle glaze.

My new whippet

It was a tiring weekend. Now I know why lots of people don't like the end of the weekends. I hope Mike and I can get better sleep tonight. Take care, everyone! Don't catch a cold!

Our first bisque firing, gorgeous lemon pie and Mike's socks

Hello, everyone. We have had a fabulous long weekend. Last Friday we went to Grove ferry to do birdwatching in the morning. Water looked blue; it is rare for the water there to look that blue! In the afternoon, Mike threw some pots on a wheel, and I made some chameleons. In the early evening, we went to private view for Canterbury Christ Church University Art department graduate show. It was such a fun day!

On both Saturday and Sunday, I was busy making chameleons and sheep. I was on a roll. I could not stop making them. 

I will write about them later in the week, because today I like to tell you about our first real firing. This morning, Mike switched on our kiln at 5:30.

Parts of our ceramics to be bisque fired

Ready for firing.

We are going to open the kiln tomorrow morning. Mike says it is like opening Christmas presents. I thought I would rather unload it in a daylight, as our kiln is in a garage. I hope everyone is safe and there is no casualty. Our fingers and paws crossed!



Mike baked a fabulous lemon meringue pie Sunday morning while I was asleep. So when I finally woke up, our house was filled with lovely lemon smell! Ahhhh! I love the citrus smell! I love a lemon meringue pie! This is my most favourite pie in the world. It goes very well with Darjeeling tea.  

Mike's lemon meringue pie with Pumpkin's egg

Sadly, we can't eat it until it becomes cool. We usually cheat with other types of cakes, but not this one. It MUST be cool.

We had it at lunch time.

I was patient. So, reward was 100 times better. I have already finished all, by the way. LOL I am waiting for the next one to be baked!

At lunch time, Mike came to me with an amused look in his face. ??? He pointed at his socks. He had spent a half day with these unmatched socks. Bless him!

Yes, they are grey, but....

 

Feet samples, cheesecake and eBay

Hello everyone! there have been several showers in Canterbury today. Not good for drying laundry or dog walks. lol

We have had a good eBay this evening. It is SO nice to know that people come back to buy our ceramics. Thank you so much!

This morning, I fired several sculptures with enamel decoration. It was a success. Phew. I forgot to take photos of them, so I will show you tomorrow.


From late morning to early afternoon I also made samples of, well, feet! I made three, and I like these two.

Feet samples

In the afternoon, Mike made a cheesecake. I helped him. We are going to have a lovely artist couple for tea tomorrow. They adopted Jubjub, the largest chameleon, and one of the small ones. They called the little one 'Son of Jubjub. lol
  

Cheesecake in action

The first layer goes in...

This cheesecake is originally my recipe, but I guess it should be called his now. It is delicious and easy. I will type it here tomorrow with a photo.

 

In the meantime, despite all the action, our princess, Pearl, was enjoying her great sleep. She sleeps about 22 hours or a bit more a day. Not exaggerated.