For a year now I have been part time at work, to allow me to become a potter on Wednesdays. Tuesdays evenings are like the new Fridays when I cycle off to college and the next morning, I change the desk and office clothes for an apron and the shed. This gives me one day + some part of a weekend to make my work. Its not enough and one day soon, maybe every day can be shed day. Wouldn't that be amazing? Mind you, I wouldn't want to pretend that every shed day goes well. Quite often, by the end of the day, you are all squeezed out from the combination of the concentration and trying to get all the work down the pipeline. Some days the throwing is off, or none of the experiments work well (delivering no answers and just more questions) and sometimes my pit fires are cold or too hot or too fast. On these days, you just have to have patience and faith in the general direction of the work. I created these long necked vases a while back and I have been trying to make them better for a while - and bigger. My college tutor gave me some really good tips on how to do that and I made the best one yet yesterday. So even though the pit fire sawdust supplies are running out, and the experiments at the moment are frustrating and my burnishing frankly sucks, we still have progress! If all else fails, the old sailing mantra can be adapted to remind oneself that "a bad day in the shed is still better than a good day in the office".