Plate

From the Pottery Cafe (not the Poetry Cafe, that's something different). This was the result of an inspired birthday present from Offsprog One who took us there to celebrate my birthday, after Christmas. We sat there painting with mysterious pale paints round a wooden table while drinking lukewarm coffee. She painted a Jamie Oliver plate and Offsprog Two painted a mug with lots of symbols that included a Smiley face and Homer Simpson. It was a lovely therapeutic morning after all the Christmas activity.

Back when I was in my twenties, my then boyfriend installed a kiln in his room in the squat where we lived. He bought plain white tiles and painted designs like Atora Suet packs and Tampax boxes on them, building up a roaring trade in some of the more chichi shops in Brighton. I made a little porcelain baby whose hand fell off, and also some rattles and things which I think he still has. It used to get very warm in the room when he was firing the kiln, which operated on stolen electricity piped up from the basement where a squatter electrician had a flat. O, the stories I could tell!