Week One

I have arrived safely in Rhayader, Wales. After a long night and day of traveling I made it with only one small transportation hiccup. I stood up to get out at my stop on the train and the doors never opened. I pushed the open button but nothing happened. The train started to go with me still on it.The train staff was very friendly and they helped me get back to the right stop. There are sheep everywhere. I asked one of the train staff how they keep the sheep from wandering onto the train tracks. He said, "Well, I suppose we hit one every now and again". Fortunately that did not happen while I was on board. It took an extra 1.5 hours due to the missed stop but I got to see a lot of the countryside and listen to some of the people speaking in Welsh. Welsh is a very hard language to pronounce. When I asked someone how to get to a place I usually had to just point to the word on a paper. I was greeted at the Caersws train station by Phil Rogers and we went right to his house. I met his wife, Lynne and their two friendly collie dogs. I got a tour of the Rogers' home which is over 500 years old. There are many exposed beams throughout the house. The walls are stone, covered with plaster, then painted. There are pots EVERYWHERE which is fantastic. Today Phil opened a cabinet full of pots and I handled many Hamada pieces and a few by Bernard Leach and Michael Cardew. Interestingly, Phil says he does not have many of his own pots in the kitchen for use because he gets sick of looking at them all day in the workshop. Phil showed me his three kilns, a gas, a salt and a wood. He estimates we will be doing a woodfiring in mid December before I leave. He has a beautiful showroom and workshop which are in a building that used to be a cow barn. Today I learned how to properly mix clay. Phil uses this big machine that used to mix dough in a high school cafeteria. Instead of measuring out dry materials by the gram, we measured it out by the 25 lb bag! Tomorrow I will be mixing it by myself so Phil can do some throwing. He uses several clay bodies but they all have very similar ingredients. I am getting well acquainted with Libby and Tess, the two collie dogs that live here. They love to play ball or catch Frisbee. They are very affectionate and have a habit of wedging their faces between my knees when they feel I am ignoring them. I ran around with them in a big field this morning carefully trying to avoid the thistles and many "sheep patties".The sheep each have a spot of blue or red on their backs so the farmers can identify which animals are theirs. Although it rained later in the day, when I woke up this morning it was very sunny. It got cooler as the day went on and I was glad to have a cup of tea with my lunch. There are a few interesting things I've noticed: the hot and cold handles on the faucet are backwards with the hot being on the right, you have to flip a switch when you plug something into an electric outlet and American plugs don't fit into the outlets here. Many things are the same; some of trees change color just like they do in New Hampshire and the Welsh people take pride in their heritage, just as Americans take pride in the state they are from. The people here are very friendly and have offered me a generous welcome. I am attaching some pictures. One is of my bedroom, another is of the Rogers house and the last is of a nearby field.I know I will have many more stories and pictures to share in the weeks ahead.
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