So I wake up today to mutters of 'the cats wet my bed' as a sweaty pyjama'd 10 year old climbs in bed beside me in the space that my poor DH climbed out of a couple of hours earlier. The tinkle, jingle of a DS taking the place of silence as Mario races round a track in his cartoon car tells me it's time to get out if bed.
Breakfast had and dishwasher loaded with the remnants of last nights dinner, washing machine emptied into dryer and re-loaded with more dirty washing, where the hell does it come from. I make sure the kids are busy doing stuff (ok they are in front of the tv) and nip down to the shed. I say shed loosely in so much as it started life as a shed, a lovely bright orange shed from a lovely bright orange sheddy website but now painted forest green and erected in between the trellis and a yew tree, insulated throughout, floored and painted mint green and pink inside it's now my studio. But studio sounds pompous and proffessional so it's just 'the shed' But its mine and I can hide in there with my one cup of coffee coffee maker, the tumble dryer and a biscuit jar, containing a dried up small brown spider and a few crumbs. I'm on a diet.
There it is, in the corner of 'the shed' my torch, I don't have name for it, prehaps I should, I mean people name their cars and boats, why do people name inanimate objects? Should I call it Robert or Graham, would it perform better with a name. Anyway there it is, torch, screwed to the workbench via a nice tidy bracket that my Father in law made for it. Around the bench are my slow cooker, and jugs and jugs and pots of glass rods, all colours and types. and then theres the workbench itself, covered in more rods of glass and bits of broken glass and glass frit and steel rods and Ahhhh my trusty palette knife.
Switching on the torch for the first time each day is a bit of a ritual, I sit on my swivel chair, gleaned from Oxfam for a tenner, settle myself in for the long burn, bounce up and down, whilst kicking and twizzling the base round into position so that I can rest my feet on 2 of the 5 wheelie bits. I'm ready. I light the match and turn on the lamp and phoooooooooof off it goes roaring into life then phooooooof off it goes as it runs out of gas and I climb down from my perch to turn the gas on at the canister and start the process again.
Theres a lot to think about as you hold the glass rod in the flame, little bits of molten hot glass pinging off down your cleavage and into your lap. As that hot shiny red glob of glass turns liquid and I introduce it to the mandrel its wonderful to see a new bead apearing in front of your eyes. What am I going to do with it now, flowers, spots, stripes, frit. I reach for the stringer and start rows of dots then dots on dots and dots on dots and the phone rings. Now with the best will in the world I can't answer the phone while I've got a bead in the flame, for one the torch is noisy and I can't hear much over it and what I can hear is being drowned out by the radio blaring out Planet Rock in the background so I push the button and shout down it, 'ring back in 5 mins' and then hang up at which point it imediately rings again and I ignore it.
5 beads on and I have to stop. My feet are freezing and I need coffee to warm them. 'Get a heater' I hear you say. I have a heater, but I also have to have the door wide open and both windows open to diffuse the noxious gas that the torch makes so I don't keel over. So I don't have the heater on, my top half is lovely and warm. Anyway its lunch time and I've done 4 beads and a big mumma of heart which took a good hour to make, it will probably break in the slow cooker or when I take it off the mandrel but thats life and a kiln costs £600.
The kids have had enough of tv and are teaching the dog how to be a chicken. I don't think the dogs that bothered about chicken unless it comes with gravy and runs off down the garden when I open the back door.
It's half term and I decide to take the kids to Pizza Hut for lunch. Roll on Monday when I can be back in full swing and can spend the whole day in 'the shed'
2 comments:
Do you cook your dinner in the shed or is the slow cooker a tool of the trade?
I think you need to post pics of your shed!
Oh no it's a tool of the trade, it keeps my vermiculite hot that I cool the beads down in, though I have to say that if you very carefully put your coffee cup in it too it keeps your coffee warm.
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