We have felt as if we were under siege for the last six weeks. Snow arrived in early December and it kept on coming, so that there were no spaces to park in front of our house. We struggled to keep walkways clear for mail delivery and to get to the car but I had to postpone any plate painting gatherings.

Luckily the skies cleared on Christmas Day and for the first time Alan and I did not host the family gathering, but drove out to Pitt Meadows to Steve and Jen’s new house. They so enjoyed having enough room to entertain all of us and Jen cooked her first turkey. What a delight it is to have three little grandsons!

On Boxing Day there was no cleaning up to do and I was happy to get down to the studio and start on new pots for the new year. I threw some yunomis off the hump and later so enjoyed painting them with a mad assortment of coloured slips. At this point I’m still waiting to finish a few more pieces so that I can fire them all and see just how ridiculous the colours are!

Now that I have an iPhone 6 I’ve begun to post some photos on Instagram. It seems to be a really easy way to let others see the best photos, and show the process of making. There’s also an app. for assembling several photos into one image – so you’ll see that some of these are like that. I’m really enjoying my iPhone and am finding that, unless I need the super close-up capability of my Panasonic Lumix (for birds in trees, for instance) the iPhone takes amazing quality photos.

I’ll end this first blog of 2017 there, for now. I’d like to share my thoughts on some recent clay-related events, and show my next creations, soon, but that’s enough for tonight.

It was encouraging to read, today, that ‘Pottery Making Info’ have awarded my blog an Honourable Mention, putting me first on the list after the top 17!

This week, finally, we’ve had some above freezing days and some rain and the snow is very slowly melting. I can now get out to the kiln shed with un-fired pots without running the risk of sliding on ice or snow. I know other Canadians are saying we shouldn’t complain about snow but we West-Coasters are entirely unfamiliar with it and are unprepared. We’re already looking for bulbs poking up instead.