Potting is a painfully slow business. It takes months, if not years to refine techniques and ideas, battling your own mediocrity and pathetic limitations. Sometimes, its a real grind, but you learn to ride it as part of the process. Getting through the grind is what gets you to a better place, so grind on. I have been grinding through January, and generally feeling a bit scared of the smokefire. Then one day, I threw a pot into the fire and just decided to sacrifice it to a reckless hunch, or just plain inquisitiveness. I rolled this baby around in the fire, and found a whole new world on the other side. The blacks, blues, greys and chestnut browns of the usual firings where absent. Instead I found pinks, soft yellows, lilac.... I wanted to grab a passerby and shout LOOOK!!! LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!! To you, its just another pot, maybe quite a nice pot. To me, this is a miracle. I have managed to repeat this a few times now, so its become part of the repertoire already. The shelves look instantly more cheerful with these in the mix.

As for the grind, the thrill of this new discovery lasted all of about two days and now I am glowering at the shelves again and wondering where I go next. Onwards!