2 more days !

Can't wait for you'all to get here ! 

more of the weekend....

My lady friends sent me their pics so I have a few more to share 

with you from the weekend of Bastille day.

 Below are Anne's parents, Odile and Roger our gracious hosts. 

Oh, and their puppy, Mousse. 

Stephan is breaking up the pure dried bits of porcelain 

and then we weighed it out.

Still weighing.....

Mixing the toliet paper with water....

Lunch break!

 That bit of wine with the cheese must have been good 

because afterwards everyone was all smiles....

and wheeling rolling pins with a sparkle in their eye....

and pondering, hum......

and more chuckling.

 And then we finally got back to work.

Half of us we doing ceramic 

and the other half printmaking....and then we'd switch.

Running our plates through the press....

Trying the wheel...

I'm working on a carrot. 

Yes, a carrot.

The second wheel in the other studio.

Rubbing that ink.....

 Winding down the day..

On to .....

Saturday.... porcelain. 

Note everything is white and clean.

Back to Anne's for dinner ....

with apero first of course.

Dinner prep, including Anne's man Julien,

 who joined us for the rest of the weekend.

After dinner exchange of our websites and such....

 before dozing off to sleep.

Fast forward to Sunday....BBQ, feet up, the men have arrived. 

Us ladies, just spent the day cleaning up our pieces in attent of the firing.

 And of course Seb took a shot at the wheel. 

Wow, what's going on with this expression....?

He had a blast!

cat fight !

So as previously stated our cat ocassionally jumps off the balcony at 4 in the morning to explore in the dark. Well, last night Stephane awoke to some low growling noise and of course it was Texas outside face to face with another cat.

 I was totally out of it. Stephane was scrambling for pants, shoes and keys while I was limited to observing from Seb's balcony.

 All of a sudden it was like a bolt of lighting. 

The two cats went at each other and were rolling around in a ball. All I could see was puffs or hair flying everywhere. It was exactly like the loony tune cartoons when two animals get into a fight. With the scribbles of pens, pound signs and misc. symbols flying in the air. The closest I could come to fininding something was this picture which doesn't really do it justice, but you get the idea. 

So anyhoo, I think Texas knew he had met his match and lept up onto Seb's balcony just as Stephane was clearing the side of the apartment building. Our cat didn't even seemed phased. Just layed there for a good brushing and went about his business. 

We on the other hand are completely sleep deprived and out of sorts.

 HE IS KILLING ME !

Do I have to close all the shutters and live like a prisioner in my own house? What is this world coming to? Anybody want a cat? 

He really is precious, aside from the galavanting at 4 in the morning bit. 

Really.....

I am off to bed, 

yes it's only like 8:30 and I am exhausted.

Summer cooking....

Here's Seb and my flan. 

Homemade dough and all. Our first ever custard. Too bad I burned the milk though. It had an ever so hint of burned milk flavour to it. Didn't stop us from eating it mind you, but the next time, I'll know to keep a closer eye on that stovetop. 

The next day consisted of a bikeride with sandwiches, burned milk flan and ping pong. Yes, those are miniature ping pong paddles scored at a flea market. 

We discovered that they are too small to actually play correctly though. 

By we sure had fun trying.

getting my hands dirty....

Instead of fireworks for Bastille day, myself and 7 girlfriends did pottery. We took advantage of a three day weekend and met up at my friend Anne's parents place about 40 minutes from Caen. They are retired bee keepers hence the sign below for honey /miel.

Anne's parents have several buildings, 

most of them wonderfully resored dating from the mid 1700's. 

Below is the well, 

if only ours at Chenedouit looked so good!

One of the farm buildings has been transformed into Odile's pottery studio. All of the work pictured on the shelves is hers from before being pulled into full time beekeeping with her husband Roger. 

Upstairs from the studio are crates and crates of pottery (found and purchased) with the idea of creating a pottery museum.

Collection of bird's nests and bottles....

And these beauties are vintage bee hives, yes, including the houses.

So being the unrealistic dreamers that we are, 

we paged through books and had all kinds of ideas of what we wanted to make. 

And got to work....first thing first. We weighed out dried pieces or porcelain to be mixed with a percentage of toliet paper and water and left to sit overnight.

This mash below is the poor man's version of 100% porcelain and is easier to work for the first timer. 

So with the porcelain ready for the next day and we got busy throwing, building and getting to know some grey argile clay. 

We also had a press to work with, so we were able to do some printmaking as well. Such the professional set up I tell you. 

We were all tuckered out and called it quits around 7 o'clock, 

headed over to Anne's place for dinner and bed.

 Saturday morning walk back to Anne's parents place across the road. 

And off to work on our porcelain pieces. 

Saturday night was back to Anne's place for a very civilized dinner and drinks. 

Anne is on the left and Stephanie (an artist specializing in porcelain) lives in Nantes.

Sunday afternoon Stephane and Sebastian came for a BBQ. The last time Anne's parents had seen Seb was in the hospital as a newborn, so it was nice that they got a chance to catch up after 12 years. Anyhoo, after the delicious lunch, Seb took advantage of throwing his first ever bowl and finished off the afternoon with four hours of ping pong with the boys. I don't think he had a problem falling asleep that night. 

I had a fantastic weekend, really, really great!

 I am anxious to see the results after the first firing in a few weeks. Then we'll all head back over to glaze them.  Can't wait!