Am at last starting to get some work constructed and drying ready for a mid March firing. Everything  seems to be taking too long and I ready need a kick up the behind to rev up a gear. Will try and scare myself into action with some calender contemplation. Need to get my exhibition pieces finished and push on with my orders and restocking the domesticware. Must also stop avoiding all the admin work I need to do for the Stamford Pottery Market I organize. The trick is to scare myself just enough to up the tempo but not to overdo it so that I'm paralysed with fear.

 Have spent quite a bit of the last 2 weeks in Middle Earth. Perhaps not an ideal holiday destination but a great retreat from teeth gnashing frustration with Woman's Hour and other tedious radio programs. I picked up a bargin box of CDs of the BBC drama serialisation of The Lord of the Rings. Was soon gripped by the story again but also had a double layer of memories of when I first heard it transmitted on the radio. I have vague memories of the pre-sunday lunch slot which brings faint whiffs of gravey and sprouts and then the late night repeat, listening in bed with the lights out and the frisson of fear in the mines of Moria. I sometimes find when I'm examining my fired pots that I am reminded of the radio programs I listened to during their making. I hope for a better radio week this week or else I'll have to raid the mobile library for its talking books.

Am striving on with my lenten tasks of a tune a-day and a sketch a-day. As with last year, there is a lot of late night sketching going on. Roll on Easter.

No photo this week as I'm at a plodding stage. Working away but nothing to show for it yet. Have spent the week constructing pieces from thrown components and hope that things will come together in this coming week. I have the feeling that I'm making pieces that will ostensively be useable domesticware but are the type that might get used once a year, require hand washing up and not sell because they will take up too much cupboard space and collect dust. I really do make things to be useful and want them to be used but sometimes I fear they are also structures on to which I can perch a nice bird. The dilemas of a domesticware potter.

Have not been following the story but read a letter in the newspaper today and am guessing that the Wedgewood factory's private collection is in danger of being split up and sold. I have all sympathy with the needs of the pension fund but please don't let this be another Royal Doulton scenario where the collection was autioned off, scattered around the world and they made less money from it than the offer the Stoke Museum had put in for the whole collection. Will try and keep my eye on this story. I just hope it can be kept together in a permanent display.

Am preparing myself for my lenten tasks and bought a sketch book today. Instead of giving something up I shall do what I did last year and take somthing up, i.e. to play a tune everyday and do a sketch everyday. I had no problem with the tune playing but it was a long 40 days on the drawing front and quite a few scraped in just before midnight. It always seems such a shame to spoil a beautiful, clean white sheet with one of my daubs. Will have to stoke up with pancakes on Tuesday to see myself through.