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I hadn't touched clay since last November until this weekend. Ernie had been using air-dry clay at school and wanted to do more at home, so I bought a bag online and we had a play I showed them how to make a pinch pot and my efforts were as rough as fuck. Phoebe then made a really lovely beaker to keep pencils in, which was far better than mine.
As with everything I do, I am not the best at it even in my own house.
Ernie made a clay pumpkin that he wants to give to Terry Deary the author of Horrible Histories (who also appears in the audiobooks we've been listening to). I don't know why he thinks Terry would want a clay pumpkin or how I am supposed to get it to him. Ernie also insists that the man is called Terry Derry.
Today, I did find myself looking at pottery equipment on the internet, idly wondering about how much it might cost me to buy a kiln and a wheel and to convert the kitchen area of the annexe to a pottery studio.
It would cost a lot.
Then you have to buy clay and shelving and paint and I think I'd need to pay Rich and Keith to come round and give me time-limited tasks which they then judge, whilst Keith fails to cry and I cry a little bit.
Plus I'd beed to pay a camera crew to film it all and have people coming up to ask me how it's going when it's clearly going really badly so I tell them to fuck off. And then pay someone to edit all those bits out of the footage so I don't look like a monster. (Throwdown is a rare programme where they actually edit stuff to make people seem nicer than they actually are - luckily for me).
And I doubt I would make very much stuff.
But as I continue to struggle to get much work done I wonder if I could make a living selling weird wonky cups and bowls and gnomes to gullible members of the public.
Until a small child stands up from the crowd and says, "These are all terrible. A child could do better. In fact I am his daughter and my stuff is far superior."
I absolutely know that I would use everything once and then get disheartened when I couldn't do it properly. So unless I can sell a gnome for £5000 I'd better not get involved.
I had been pretty certain that I wouldn't pot again post-show, but today I did think maybe I'd try and give it a go. Just maybe not with my own equipment.
Or maybe I should just put all my potting hopes and dreams into the next generation. Just as I am doing with all my comedy hopes and dreams.
And if you know how I can get a clay pumpkin to Terry Derry then do get in touch.
