One of the benefits of having large amounts of time to THINK about potting, rather than actually doing it, is that you can mentally tackle potting problems. Earlier in the year I had problems with pots cracking, although at the same time I was getting blue colours from the smoke. Since then, with the limited number of pots I have been able to make over the Summer, I have somewhat solved the cracking (make smaller pots for now), but I have ended up losing the "blues" and getting instead more brown pots. Now, some of these brown coloured pots are very pretty indeed, but I do like a variation in colour, and I would like to have more control over that. I pondered this issue for weeks before coming up with a new idea (basically involving some chicken wire and kitchen foil...). After tracking down some chicken wire buried at the back of our garden shed, I fired this little fellow, with low expectations. So the feeling I got when I removed the lid of the smoke fire bin to see this pot was like a shot of euphoria. Even in the ashes of the fire, these blues shone out.... like the milky way on a moonlit night. These moments keep you going as a potter. We have to put up with a lot of periods of failure and befuddlement. These are not great problems in the scale of the world's problems, but they do have a habit of getting you down. This blue pot was compensation for a lot of these moments. Hello blues.