How not to do an imprint?

Sadly, I'm back to work today. Leila will be visiting to help Helen during the day which should ease the change a lot. In fact, Leila's suggested that if Helen could express enough milk, she might be able to take her all together for an afternoon and give Helen untold freedom. Or lots of sleep... A few nice pictures from yesterday: A beautiful selection of roses, peonies and others from Leila's garden. Its been 15 days now since we got home to cacophony of flowers which have since died. So its nice to get the blossom levels topped up!















Our visit to the potter was a mixed success. We got there and he was halfway through setting up a wooden horse for a display. After 10 minutes he threw a disc for us (first picture). Then placed it on a the end of a plank for us to press Emma's delicate little hand into (second picture.) Which would have been fine had it been putty. However, this was firm, unyielding clay. The first attempt was a disaster, Emma clenched her hand and dragged it away. The potter looked grim and Helen suggested we go home. Unbowed, I pushed Emma's hand once more into the ruined clay. This time, fingers were visible, but only just. The palm mark was scuffed. The potter sighed saying "I was thinking if this was a success I'd ask you to do a second one for me to show in the shop but..." and left the words "but this is a disaster" unspoken. At my insistance he sat back down at his wheel scrunching up the disastrous attempt and flinging it back on to the wheel. I asked whether the clay could be made any softer, but he assured me this was the softest that could be worked with. I started to suspect that the John Lewis service might have involved soft putty and a cast. On the second attempt, a decent, if a little shallow and smudged, hand print was produced. By now Emma was covered in brown clay! And we still wanted a foot print next to it! So off came the romper leggings and in plunged her foot. It was a lot easier with the foot and we got a really nice mark. The potter even cheered up a bit. After 15 minutes of deciding on colours, glazes, writing, pictures, outlines, etc. we were quite glad to leave.

The rest of the day involved laundry (with Tigger helping), thank you cards, a little sleep for Helen, watching Spain beat Tunisia (just!) and some rather nice food. Stuffed pepper, cheese and bread for lunch, then pasta with roasted veg for supper.

Last night was blissful sleep until 3.30am, then Emma was a bit noisy after that with wind and asking to be fed. I managed to sleep through most of it. And now I'm off to work, shucks!

Dave x