4. second day anxiety

This series starts with “1. I'm home”. All the pictures can be clicked on for larger versions.

We started each day with a meeting in the kitchen for questions, directions, and instructions and, most important, choosing our menu for the evening's meal. The food, btw, was consistently good and varied and abundant. We all thought we were going to go home several pounds heavier. Whether the meal was being catered by the incomparable Karen at the kitchen or dinner out at various restaurants in the area, and we ranged fairly far and wide, or prepared by fellow participants, there was not a single complaint about the food. Well, except poor Nancy whose hostess fixed her 4 or 5 eggs for breakfast every morning and would not get the hint or even outright request to offer fewer.

I feel a bit intimidated with all this talent around me after yesterday's presentations and have to remind myself that mine's not too shabby. We choose our places around the large table in the big kiln room and everyone looks industrious. Still jet-lagged and directionless, my anxiety is palpable I guess because Jane sits me down for a face to face and tells me she actually prefers participants to not start in immediately but to ease in and let the place sink in. This settles me down and some of us decide to go for a walk including Jane. Instead of going back to the harbor, we decide to go the other way down to the beach, really a rocky cove, at the other end of the village. It's a fairly steep track down to the water so we are glad of the dry weather and the warmth of the sun as we sketch or engrave or take photos or just sit and be.

The rest of the day was spent in the studio, then more presentations.

We loaded into the van for our dinner outing at the Bay Owl, stopping on our way at Latheronwheel Harbor. The Scottish coastline is pocked with small harbors that allowed the fishermen's boats safety where they could unload their catch and have it hauled to market. The countryside is also pocked with deserted and crumbling crofts, small stone abodes that the sharecroppers lived in. The people were all forced off the land in the Clearances when the landowners decided sheep were more economical and profitable than crops and the crofts were left to ruin. 

After dinner, we returned to the studio for 2 more presentations.