Queen of rabbits

Hello everyone. Our kiln is busy. It doesn't have a chance to cool down this week. Mike finally took some photos of Out of sorts- Blues.

Out of sorts - blues

She looks a bit needy! : D

Take me, take me, take me home! 

I am so pleased with how she looks!

Last Tuesday Mike went to a meeting in the Tower of London. He came back with lots of goodies given by the company holding the meeting. The lady and the gentleman in frock were not part of the meeting!

The Tower of London

He also bought four organic almond croissants that I love on the way home.

Midori 3, Mike 1 :-)

 Then I started the another glaze firing after 10 that night.

12/Nov- Glaze firing.

And I made this mask last night. I was not sure of the gender, but a lady on Twitter said a girlish boy. I guess that's who he is. he reminds me of Peter Pan

And today is my birthday. Mike gave me a bunny card and a box of champagne truffles, another of my favourites when I woke up!  

From left: pretty cards from brother-in-law, Mimi and Mike. Thank you! 

 Then I opened the card, I learned that I am the queen of rabbits. :D Hopping with happiness!

With all this going on, Pearl the whippet asks, 'Where is the cake and bone (for me)?'

Pearl wants to share birthday treats! 

 Business as usual in the studio. They went to glaze-firing at noon. Birthday celebration meal will be after we have set up for the next show.

Dog shampoo day and Mike's birthday present

Hello everyone. Today I took a day off from studio work, although I popped in there to check the kilns (I fired two kilns yesterday). I always go to check whether firing has finished. Yes, there are programmers, but best to check them in person. I heard the story that twice firing failed to stop for days, and all shelves collapsed.

We started a day with tidy up of the kitchen as we booked the annual boiler service. Sadly we have to remove lots of things before the boiler can be checked.

Then I had a busy morning. I had an hour of webcast to watch. It's a difficult result to swallow and digest. One day you gain and one day you lose. Let's hope gain is greater than loss.

After lunch, we quickly went to an errand; kiln check and dropped off  dry cleaning. Then we shampooed Pearl. She used to hate shampoo. She used to put nails down and pretended that she was made of rock. Now she has progressed so much that she reluctantly accepts shampooing as a part of the house rules.

Let me out!

 After rinsing her, we closed the door of shower cubicle and waited for her shaking herself. But she didn't. We opened the door, then she jumped out and shook herself to her heart's content. Yes, we got wet, too.

Drying on a bath towel

One of the good things of whippets is that you can towel-dry them. She becomes dry very quickly. To separate her from unwashed Topaz, we kept Pearl upstairs. Then she peeks from the staircase. Awww. So cute! Yes, she and Topaz were given Chewing Stix I bought today.

Give me chew stix!

After she got dry, it's Topaz' turn. Pearl went back to her also washed bed. She takes sleep very seriously. 

zzzz,zzzzz,zzz

  She also sleeps in odd positions. We used to think it is her, but after seeing other sleeping whippets on Internet, it is probably whippet thing!

I sleep like a girl.  (Why is your neck so bendy? All the better with fitting to doughnut bed!)

 
Then the door bell rang. It's Mike's birthday present from me! In fact, I have never seen what it is; I knew it is a camera (Mike told me!) Mike chose, paid and received it from a courier. His birthday is the 22nd, by the way. If he is happy, I am happy. (Marriage rule 1)

What's that?

DPD is like Japanese couriers. They come during the time slot of one hour they said they would. I am a satisfied customer!

It smells plastic!

Mike looks very happy.

la-lalala. 

Happy birthday. Mike (on the 22nd)!

Here is comparison with mine (right).

Bigger than mine

His has more functions and higher specs than mine. But it hasn't got GPS, so it was on offer, he said. All men like gadgets, don't they? I even don't know why you need GPS on a camera.

One little, two little three little Canon.... 

The one I took the photo is also Canon. We have three Canon. : )

It's my birthday, but lots of Pearl's pictures!

Hello everyone. Price Charles and I share the same birthday, not the year, mind you. We both also studied social anthropology. I wish HRH the best birthday.

These gifts are from Mike. He delighted me by waking me up with a pretty card this morning. Thank you, Mike.  

My birthday, today. 

We usually go out on the birthdays, but alas, I have a class to go to this evening. We had to postpone going out. Mike took an afternoon off. so, we took Pearl to a long walk this afternoon. (Topaz went to the post office with me yesterday).

Above the walking path

Because I was taking the photo above the path, Pearl also looked up. Of course, she was looking for a squirrel.

Where is the squirrel?

 She is fully alert. I could tell from those ears!

Look at my big ears!

 

One foot up. 

 Here is the photo of three shadows. Daddy, mummy and Pearl!

 Where is the squirrel? 

How beautiful the trees are! The late fox used to come from this way. I wish there were Narnia beyond this lamp post.  

Orange and copper coloured leaves in the late afternoon sun

  

Mike's birthday adventure

Hello, everyone. It's Mike's birthday, today. I gave him a birthday card that I made yesterday. He likes it. It was fun! It was made by scissors, glue and coloured pencils. I remembered myself doing similar things at kindergarten. lol

Birthday card for Mike

On his birthdays we go to somewhere he would like to go. It's usually a coast. This year he decided to go to Botany Bay after seeing the photographs, which look exotic and gorgeous. One concern was that whether pearl, the whippet could be alright, because she usually has motion sickness. But we have trained her, and she got used to travel to the nearest coast, about 10 minutes. drive from our house. Botany Bay is about 30 minutes drive, so we weren't sure if she could make it. We made plan B and plan C, just in case. This is how she traveled.

To start with, she was sitting on my lap, but decided to stand up later on. 

There was a very short tunnel, about 30 meters, where she started to panic, but she held on, and she finally made a whole journey. Hooray!

Mike stopped the car at Palm Bay. I looked around to see where the palms were, but couldn't find any. It was overcasting and a bit windy. You can see how this cliff was formed. It is mostly chalk. About 60cm deep from surface, there is loam. It must be very well-drained soil.

A good place to learn about strata

Lots of yellow flowers

We walked on the top of this chalk cliff. There are no traffic, and peaceful. We walked about 15 minutes on this path. We peeked from the top of the cliff. There was quiet and peaceful beach underneath. Botany Bay is ahead.

Mike wondered it was a nudist beach. I assure you it wasn't.

We finally reached Botany Bay. But unfortunately dogs were not allowed in summer. Sun appeared from the cloud, and it became warmer. Can you see the sailing boat? It looked like a Narnian boat!  

Botany Bay

Botany Bay from the other side

 Tide was out, and there were lots of seaweed. It is very shallow beach. We rested a bit, and decided to return to the car along the beach. We saw a steep path down just before we got to Botany Bay, so we climbed down there. I went down first. Second Topaz, Next Pearl. Mike came down last. We were all alright.

Midori is a scout. ' OK, guys, it's all safe here!'

We walked back on the sandy beach. Topaz rolled on stinky seaweed twice. I almost wept.

Lots of small chalk rocks had fallen from the cliff surface to the ground. Apparently one of the children decided to introduce her family to the world. It says 'Me, size 2, Mum size 6, DaD size 9'.

Sweet graffiti

After we came home, we had lunch. Mike wanted to have his birthday cake. If he had married a mumsy lady, a beautiful cake would appear on the table, but I could only produce a wacky birthday card. So we bought chocolate mousse. Voila, here is his birthday sweet.

Mike's birthday chocolate mousse

Dogs were exhausted. They went to sleep. After a rest, we went to town to find  tongs for glazing. We thought we could improvise with kitchen or BBQ tongs. We wanted a cheap one. So we fist visited Poundland and then Wilkinson. There was no suitable ones in either shops. So we almost gave up, but I thought we should try Fenwick because they always have a good selection of kitchen tools although they are not usually cheap. They only had good stainless steel ones with good price tags. But I found these, instead.

Wenlock mug

Olympics mug

They were also clearance. They were about 70% off. Mike picked the Wenlock mug for £ 1.20. He said he would use it at the office. I chose the London 2012 for £1.50. They are bargains! We were pleased.

We went to Waitrose to get something for dinner. While Mike was queuing at the till, I checked the BBQ corner. There was a cheap BBQ set at a half price. We were most pleased!

After a dinner, Mike altered the tongs so that they could be used for glazing. He glazed pots. We will fire them tomorrow.






     

Baby alpaca socks and sample faces

Baby alpaca undyed socks. A birthday present from Mike. They were redelivered today because it was initially delivered on Saturday when we were absent.

Like so many husbands on the planet, Mike has no idea what I want, so I request something twice a year, to relieve his agony. This year, I saw these socks on a magazine, and fancied one pair for myself. They only used baby alpaca fleece, it says. When Mike read this, he said 'Oh, they plucked baby alpaca to make these!'. I hope not, I hope they sheared.

Alpaca socks

Unlike so many husbands, he wants to buy more than one, perhaps to show that he really wanted to give his wife a gift, but didn't know what to give, so now he knows what I want, he can give me two pairs or three, or even all colours available. I stopped him. I like to try a pair first. I hope they will warm up my icy cold feet at night.

This is one of my recent test pieces for new clay and new underglaze. It looks fine, but I know that at the firing, the kiln didn't reach high for this, so I probably need another test.   

This is another one that I am using for my avatar. They are much larger than my face accessory series.

I am wondering I could use them for decorations. Perhaps hanging form the wall, or Christmas tree?  

   

Before bisque firing

Birthday cards!

Card from Mimi

Thank you, Mimi!

My old friend Mimi sent me a birthday card from Japan. It is so sweet. She always sent me really cute cards. She said, when she saw this card in a shop, she knew it must be the one for this year, as she knew that I was making lots of rabbits.

Group photo

I got one from mike's brother, too. Another sweet one. So you wonder what kind of card did I get from Mike?

Silence

Ehem, he decided to make one for me, a special one for his dearest wife. He was doodling in the bed last night. Sketches? Wanna see?

Mike said this is a chameleon.

He said this is a frog.

His parrot was much better. It looked like one. The deadline for submission was extended to the end of next Sunday because he said he would need practices. So, I will report on this when he gives me the final one.

In the past I have made several handmade 'cards' for him. My favourite one was for his birthday in 2004. I made from petals, leaves and stalks in the garden on our white floor tiles, while he was out shopping. I also gave him a wreath to wear!

On Mike's birthday in 2004

in 2009, I painted the scenery of Oare marsh in Japanese ink. One day Pearl the whippet found it and literally chewed it up, and swallowed it ... tears.

ZZZ...Japanese ink was yummy....

I was happily turning the creamer that I threw yesterday during my lunch break with the melody and tempo of Blondie's 'Dreaming', .... when I thought I almost finished, the bottom part sank. Ah-oh. The clay was too soft for turning. Mike's bowls turned out to be too thick. So all went back to a clay bucket. We will soon need a bigger one, at this rate.