Teapots and water and forgetting one's age!

 I have been making teapots, large earthenware teapots, probably around 10 or 11 inches high.  And it feels good to be doing something that has potential for a lot of inventiveness and some humour!

It has been a busy time, and my drying shelves are full to bursting with new work that is drying.  I will have to fire something soon, just to make room!

We have had a few days of delightful spring weather, and have trees laden with plum blossom.  Suddenly it feels like winter is over and it is a time for new life. It is funny how different that can make one feel.  

A foal all rugged up against the cold and wet.

As nature comes awake, so too does a feeling that life is good and has possibilities.  Really nothing has changed..., there are still bills to pay, jobs to do, problems to overcome, but a shift from grey to blue above us, and a degree or two more warmth from the sun, makes everything feel more achievable.  

If I had written a week or two ago, I would have told a very different tale.  We had been through day after day of rain, it was extraordinarily wet, and the flat land around here was beginning to look like an inland sea. 

Waikouaiti, looking toward Victoria St from Reid St.

When I consulted 10 day weather forecasts it was to find every day was predicted to be a replica of the ones we had just had... rain, rain, and more rain.  

Waikouaiti racecourse

After nearly 20 days of this I suspected that I could have started a religious sect and convinced people that we were in the midst of a "time of Noah", in fact there were sounds of hammering and sawing in the village that may well have been someone building an ark.  

In the days immediately following the deluge, the ground was so wet that mist would rise from it, and hang around in the valleys and dips. The mist would dissipate in the early afternoon, and later be replaced by fog rolling in over the hills like the sky descending. 

Whilst we were all going a bit crazy with all the water and everything being shades of grey, it was a strangely beautiful time too.  There was a feeling of the power of nature, and of being caught up in something grand and far bigger than ourselves.

And, for all the grandness of rain that rains for days and days and days, nature attended to the details too. 

When I was out with my camera after the rain, I loved the fine and perfect reflections of dead grass in the still, muddy water. It is so easy to miss seeing the little things, and I do like taking the camera with me, because it helps me pause and look.

At 99 percent humidity for days on end and rain blowing in everywhere, the damp got into the wood that I have stored for the wood fired kiln, and it has been impossible to fire for the last few weeks.  Things are noticeably better now though, and I do hope to fire again very soon.

Last year, about this time, I celebrated my 101th birthday, having given up counting properly after the big 50. 

This time round I have declared myself to be 101.5... at such a venerable age, half years become just as important as they did when I was very young, so I thought it would be fun to add a few months to the tally every year or two, and I might even subtract several decades when that becomes appealing!  

My unconventional outlook on the process of ageing nearly got me into trouble recently.  Laura was away in the North Island staying with her parents, and I had to organise paying a few bills.  Laura was in the habit of paying these via telephone banking, and I thought I would do the same..., however it is has been ages since I banked that way, and I had completely forgotten my password.  I rang the bank and spoke to a surprisingly nice person who then asked me a series of questions to see if I was really who I said I was.  The question that nearly was my undoing was, "How old are you?"  Humm, "101" did spring to mind, but not my real age.  I could remember my date of birth, but found it very difficult to do the maths to work out my age when I was holding the telephone with a surprisingly nice person waiting for my reply, and the thought of being 101 stayed stuck in my mind, and the more I struggled with it, the more resolutely it stuck!  Fortunately the Surprisingly Nice Person on the other end of the phone stayed Surprisingly Nice, and we managed to negotiate our way through my sticky situation and get the bills paid!

Well, I'd better post this off into the ether now... a bit weary this evening, but not bad for someone of 101.5!!