H.w.g.a #12

Ah, today Alistair was off early on his bike in VERY icy conditions to see to the tree-surgeons at the old Samaritans property...and came back with a leaf, to be certain we wanted  the wood...

He went back twice in the car later to fill the boot...

I wasn't allowed to be of any use, as my back is not deemed to be in any fit state, so I have walked the beach with Kitty, twice (small boy, new friend: Why is she called Kitty? It's like having a cat called Puppy!).

And made a fruity, spicy sourdough loaf...

And a batch of candles...

I am now more or less out of all the candle-stubs I was given in March, plus every other bit I had. All donations of stubs gratefully received...I will happily make new candles for you!

Will we see the new year in? Will we take the fizz and glasses down to the prom? 

Honestly, I don't know...I'll tell you tomorrow...

H.w.g.a #11

Oh, these lazy, pointless days! 

Kitty and I walked the beach again this morning, easier on my sore back - which is getting better I'm glad to say!

I played with clay, fettling the tiles/coasters I made yesterday -

And read nonsense poems aloud into my phone...

And later we colluded on a butternut squash and chickpea curry -

H.w.g.a #10

I decided not to get up this morning, and lay in bed, with my eyes tight shut while Alistsir got up and dressed, went down and made tea. 

And brought me up a cup. So kind, but no - I was NOT getting up. There was nothing to get up for, nothing I had to do and my back was still hurting.

I drank my tea and got up. Because of course there is everything in the world to get up for really - sun and sea and wind and rain, kind hearts and coronets. And a second cup of tea.

I managed a walk along the prom today, with Alistair, who was biking down to do something useful for someone. And then home along the beach, giving Kitty a good run while I picked up some kindling sticks. And listened to a meditation about compassionate engagement with the people around me.

We cleared up a bit in the garden when we got back to and chatted at the gate with a couple of friendly neighbours and dogs.

A quiet afternoon, with my back slowly easing and, as I said, nothing I HAD to do.

Success of the day! Alistair managed to buy a copy of 2021's tide-tables, sun-rises and sets, and moon-phases.

So that's us set up for the new year!

H.w.g.a #9

Today was a bit of a wash-out, with a rubbish back-ache. I managed the food-shopping though, helped with a bit of cooking and played with clay.

And then, home-alone this evening, I self-medicated with wine, mulled with cloves and spiked with some vicious spirit from the back of the cupboard.

Lit a fire and watched back to back episodes of 'My Brilliant Friend'

H.w.g.a #8

That was a wild night!

We woke up late this morning and surveyed the damage from the bedroom window...we have had a three-chair storm before, but never a three-chair-AND-the-table!

A brisk walk on the beach provided some wood for the store:

...and a rather fine cross,

 which I shall dry, and won't burn for a while - in case there are any of you out there into religious iconography?

This afternoon we returned to working-out in our little home gym.

Oh and I made a lovely sourdough loaf...

H.w.g.a #7

Is it Saturday today?

Who knows anymore?

Kitty and I walked on the beach this morning, and met a lovely little wire-haired fox terrier puppy called Peggy.

I would love a second dog - and will wait for the right one to come along...

Late this afternoon I caught Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake on Sky Arts (don't ask me what Sky Arts is doing on Freeview - I have no idea). It was FABULOUS!

And here is a little book I have been dipping into:

H.w.g.a #6

So... Christmas Day, and the usual quiet, somewhat quirky one for us.

We walked over to Wallog this morning, meeting, on the way, a particularly interesting young woman, who has just recently come to Aber to study - I hope we'll meet her again, but circumstances don't make it easy!

A quick picnic on the beach, because it was chilly and trying to rain

And then the march home to put the kettle on and eat the 'christmas pudding' we had forgotten to take

After lots of tea-drinking and a little opening of presents, he went for a swim, 'because the sun was out'. I know...

And I read 'The Owl and the Pussycat'. Aloud. As you do...

And then later we made curries...it was lovely not to be in charge; I shall make a habit of abdicating responsibility 'on the domestic front'

And now it is nearly tomorrow, he has gone to do the late-night Samaritans shift, and I have been sitting by the fire, sipping blackberry vodka and watching an episode of 'My Brilliant Friend'. Time for bed...

H.w.g.a #5

This has been a week of neighbourhood giving and receiving of tidbits - scones, wild watercress and blackberry vodka are among the things that have left this house

Apple jam has arrived here, and a lovely bag of allotment vegetables.

This wonderful gift included a bag of sprouts! We are not known for our greens, and probably haven't eaten sprouts since the last time I cooked a 'proper' Christmas lunch!

But Alistair is cooking this year, and cooking curries too!

So here he is, in the time-honoured British tradition - preparing the sprouts on Christmas Eve

And here is the curry (and it's yummy!)

And this evening we met ('by chance') a few friends in the street to toast the future (or whatever).

That was very lovely (we are honorary residents of Cliff Terrace, which is VERY lovely).

H.w.g.a #4

STILL wet and muddy today, although mild and sunny for at least part of our walk...Kitty and I went up onto the deserted golf-course and then on up to Kitty's field, where we met Basil, with his three scarey (little) dogs. And then we chased around after the tennis ball in among the rainbows

And I made flatbreads, with added coconut milk and cumin seeds - which were yummy.

And painted a couple of radiators...

H.w.g.a #3

Not being a shepherd or a sailor, I

take delight in the pink-painted sky

this early morning after

the longest night

H.w.g.a #2

Solstice blessings, lovely people!

Sitting by my solstice fire, but inside, because it is raining again...still.

Cider and toast, and looking back at this strangest of all years...

But I am short of words tonight, so here are a few images:

blackberry vodka, strained and bottled ( I had a feeling crumbles were not going to get us through this winter...)

bright berries...

and a pomander...

And here are some solstice words by Emilia Ivancu, translated by Dairmuid Johnson:

H.w.g.a #1

I start today with an ominous gloom, and close to tears, but Kitty and I tog up as usual and, between showers, tramp up the hill on what had recently been the only dry-ish path. It is a running stream, but the sun is out briefly, lifting our spirits.

By the time we reach the path at the top, there are looming black clouds above the Dyfi estuary, a huge double rainbow and bright golden sunshine.

And a hailstorm. Yeah, all at the same time. I love you, Wales...

We descend the hill, choosing the road, which today resembles a river.

That was it really - my days drift by, with a little communication with loved friends and family, a little playing with clay, a little stretchy yoga in the attic, and stuff...

And the finale of His Dark Materials series 2 in a few minutes. Yay...

Here We Go Again...

My day started well...Kitty and I had a soggy walk on the deserted golf-course, garnering wild watercress and rosemary along the way. And a couple of logs.

Then it was time for a trip to the library, open briefly (click and collect), between re-ordering their systems and Christmas and a lurking Lock-Down... to return a couple of books and pick up the Bernadine Evaristo, which it is at last my turn to read, and a couple of books on curries (Alistair is taking up Indian Cookery for Christmas dinner - yay!).

There is a stand behind the books table at the library (in the doorway, as near as one gets these days), and my eye was caught by the new second series of 'My Brilliant Friend'. So I hollered - and borrowed that too, explaining that I had borrowed the first series just as the first Lock-Down descended, binge watched it all, and then bought and read all four books (twice) during the spring and summer.

They rooted around the back-shelves for me, so I came home with series one as well, to rewatch first...

That's my viewing sorted for a while.

I played with clay this afternoon, unaware that those in power were shifting the pawns about the board again.

So now London is shut-down, and we are in Lock-Down again here in the wild west. I don't care for myself, I go nowhere anyway, but for those lives have been disrupted and contracted yet again...

What if...

There is a liminal space between the sea and the shore, where waves crash, flutter or creep between the rocks and the sand where we trudge.

The boundary between sea and shore seems disorganised, spontaneous, random, changing day to day and hour to hour, as the tides advance and recede.

As Kitty-the-dog sniffs about, thrilling in all her senses, I muse on changeable-ness and impermanence.

Wild though it is, sometimes very wild here on the west coast, I am struck by the thought that in actuality, barring the odd REALLY unusual occurrence, the waves and tides are bounded and controlled by forces I don't comprehend, connected to the moon, gravity and the like. And by consulting my tide-tables I can, with some certainty, know what to expect at any given day or time in the year.

What if my life, I muse, my goings-out and comings-in, are in actuality bounded by something somewhere I can't comprehend or grasp?

Raising our eyes to the horizon, where ominous clouds are gathering, we decide to run for home ahead of the incoming storm

That Was the Week That Was...

A week when a potential plague-vaccine has been unveiled, Trump has all-but conceded defeat and  the slighthiest tove in a political lifetime has left Downing St with his cardboard box...

 

And I wake up with a black dog glowering on my shoulder...

I shouldn't be surprised...it is well-known that the heart's landscape is just that -  just the way I feel, no more and no less. Nothing in the real world has changed overnight, for better or for worse. 

It helps to recognise that of course, and to take steps to keep things on track - back-track on a couple of commitments, verbalise how it feels (at least to myself, and on paper), eat soup, read a good book...

And shiney up a few dishes...

The Firebreak Files #15

Today is the 23rd anniversary of my lovely Mum's death. So here is my favourite pic of her, taken by her sister, I think, in one of the summers of the later 1940s, when they were walking together on Arran:

And here is the poem which I discovered while browsing the shelves of a bookshop in Ireland the summer after she died, and which always reminds me of this picture. And her:

"I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happily

Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday -
You meet me and you say:
'Don't forget to see about the cattle - '
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.

And I think of you walking along a headland
Of green oats in June,
So full of repose, so rich with life -
And I see us meeting at the end of a town

On a fair day by accident, after
The bargains are all made and we can walk
Together through the shops and stalls and markets
Free in the oriental streets of thought.

O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is a harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us - eternally"

Patrick Kavagnah  'In Memory of My Mother'

The Firebreak Files #14

What shall I write about in the Firebreak Files tonight? says I

Write about Dylan, she replied, and wove me a tale of big brass beds and memories, of regrets and no regrets, of diamonds and of rust.

And I thought about the other Dylan, of Milkwood and Fern Hill...

"Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
     The night above the dingle starry,
          Time let me hail and climb
     Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
          Trail with daisies and barley
     Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
     In the sun that is young once only,
          Time let me play and be
     Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
          And the sabbath rang slowly
     In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
     And playing, lovely and watery
          And fire green as grass.
     And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
     Flying with the ricks, and the horses
          Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
     Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
          The sky gathered again
     And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
     Out of the whinnying green stable
          On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
     In the sun born over and over,
          I ran my heedless ways,
     My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
     Before the children green and golden
          Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
     In the moon that is always rising,
          Nor that riding to sleep
     I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
          Time held me green and dying
     Though I sang in my chains like the sea."

The Firebreak Files #13

Kitty , in common with all long-legged dogs I have known, likes a bed to stretch out on (well, a choice of two actually, and her own armchair!). Or curl up on in the cooler nights. 

During the day, once it is tidied and covered, she takes up residence on our bed, from where she can keep an eye on, and remark upon, all the comings and goings in the road.

At night, once she deigns to come to bed, (think sulky teenager) she stretches out across the bed in the spare room.

Alistair has been using that room as a dumping-ground or transit lounge for 'stuff', while the ongoing process of turning the study/office into a gym/study/office is...ongoing.

A few days ago, rooting around under the bed, he came across a cardboard crocodile that one of us had made with Ben many, many years ago.

"Chris the Croc" featured, along with "Allosaurus" in adventures which Alistair used to tell Ben - Ben shared every small child's fascination for dinosaurs, and making cardboard replicas was a Saturday morning staple for quite a while:

"What are we going to make today, Daddy?".

But cardboard Chris has been placed, eye rolling and jaws agape just waiting for the moment Kitty would be curled up unaware of her peril - and I would be passing with my camera...

The Firebreak Files #12

An inauspicious start to the day when we quickly realised we had NO GAS! So no heating or hot water and no coffee!

Fortunately this is considered An Emergency, so a very prompt call-out, meant it was taken care of quickly and I received a welcome message: 'now we're cooking with gas!'

Because I was OUT! Walking Kitty, for the first time in days and days!

And lovely it was too - sunny with no wind - and Kitty and I had a little time on the golf course (the golf club being closed).

Other than that news, we wait, still, for the result of the U.S election - I wish it didn't matter to us, but it would be naive to pretend that is so.

And I  got excited about photographing reflections:

And made my best loaf yet:

The Firebreak Files #11

Part of this month's challenge is to find objects that are just useful, divest them of their 'usefulness', and display them as 'ready-made' art.

A la Duchamp's'Fountain'...

I actually find it quite hard to find 'just ordinary' things - my home is filled with repurposed stuff, or found stuff, most of which has significant emotional or sentimental attachment...

In other news, I managed a stroll along the prom this morning. And was rewarded with this beauty...

The Firebreak Files #10

Books I have loved this year...oh there have been quite a few! Like many others, I have read more under Lock-Down than before - and I was reading plenty before. Novels have always been a huge part of my interior life - I could read before I went to school and reckon school taught me nothing new...

So... Lock-Down books! Early on I started to buy copious books from my favourite online second-hand bookshop. A few were duds, and went back into the box for Oxfam (life is too short...). Quite a few were ho-hum, and some of those have suffered the same fate.

And a few were wonderful and have now been read twice...among those was of course Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet, and 'My Beautiful Friend' is number three in this year's best books list.

Number two in the list is the astonishing 'Station Eleven' by Emily St John Mandel - a post-apocalyptic, post-pandemic novel, achingly beautiful, horrifying and, I promise you, life-affirming!

And number one? Has to be 'Devisadero' by Michael Ondaatje, which I read twice, back to back in the summer ..

Happy reading!

The Firebreak Files #9

All weathers...

' Going out in all weathers', both physically and emotionally, has been much under discussion in my world  recently, and very much appealed to me - although I don't consider myself an outdoorsy type, I do love the weather, and live very close to the elements. 

And exploring the weather of my emotions, being ready to welcome and live with all the seasons of my mind has been very illuminating.

But badly hurting my leg last week has enforced a 'staying in in all weathers' on my physical movements. I haven't been past the very narrow confines of the garden - and then only to feed the birds and bring logs in from the woodstore.

 And this has had a knock-on effect on the range of my emotions. I find it all too easy to become narrow, contracted, constricted - finding that spacious and open place has not been easy at all...

But like Lock-down parts 1&2, these things are lessons for me in self-knowledge, self-acceptance, resilience - to be useful in the years to come I think...

The Firebreak Files #8

It's very hard to be entertaining when, not only is the country under Lock-Down, but one is still 'hors de combat', as my Dad would say.

But, it is as it is, and I have spent a pleasant enough day,:

This morning I made it up to the attic for the first time and was able to meditate with the wild sea. 

At breakfast, for complicated reasons, I had googled 'St Edmund, Kettles Yard'...so now my phone, desperate to please, was offering all sorts of variations - and I spent a while reading about writer and ceramicist Edmund de Waal and his fascinating family history. I remember hearing some of 'The Hare with Amber Eyes' on r4, and make a note to find a copy.

I had a slightly more creative day than some recent, stagnant days, and made a few bowls this afternoon.

This evening I was reading about Rabin's assassination - 25 years ago on November 4th. I remember hearing the news...my eldest and I were on the M4, returning home from a very long day down at my parents, giving my Dad some respite. There were firework displays and the skies were lit up for miles. 

Mum lasted another couple of years, almost to the day, all gone now...

A lovely little 'blue' Hunter's Moon tonight - but the streets are hushed and the wind and waves are all that can be heard. There will be no fireworks this year.

The Firebreak Files #6

Oh, I can't believe I haven't left the house and garden for nearly a week now! I am beginning to feel like a stagnant pool, in need of an ingress of fresh water and fresh air!

But it's no good - I still can't put weight on my foot.

So I have pottered today, not feeling creative, I still haven't played with clay...I only managed to finish a few cards:

And I made crumbles from yesterday's gift of apples and blackberries from the freezer - yum...

And started to read Station Eleven AGAIN - the library won't be wanting it returned for a while...

And watched with increasing horror the Labour party self-disemboweling

(is that even a word!?)

The Firebreak Files #5

Today was a red-letter day - we put the heating on! I had been hanging out for November 1st, but rain and wind, wet clothing and general gloom did for me. Besides I had been limping around like some minor character from a Catherine Cookson novel and was, quite frankly, swathed in so many layers I could barely move!

So tonight parts of the house are actually quite warm, towels are dry and the dog is not curled up like a husky in South Antarctica, with her nose under her tail. 

I feel very blessed, very privileged, and send some money to the DEC appeal for Idlib - where thousands are freezing in tents, hungry, with no running water. And Coronavirus...

In better news, my calf-muscle is beginning to return to life and a kind neighbour has given us some apples.

Oh and I cleaned UHU off my huge black scarf. With home-made deodorant. Obviously. As you do...

The Firebreak Files#4

Sorry to miss yesterday - I'm sure you are dying to know what I have been up to!

Nothing. 

I'm finding it really slow and hard to get about, and haven't left the house since Friday. The little jobs I can manage, like the hearth, the washing-up and so on, take twice as long, as does getting upstairs to the loo - and down again.

So I have achieved little else. Tonight I've finished my book (Ferrante, again!), and watched a dvd - it took a while to find one that I knew would be absorbing AND have a good ending...most of our extensive collection is waaay too depressing for these Lock-Down days.

'Dead Letter Office', should you be interested. No, no-one else has heard of it either...

My lower calf has developed a bruise, though not as spectacular  a one as I feel is warranted by the pain, inconvenience and howling.

And, strangely, my front lower leg too...

Kitty has transferred her alliegance (spelling?) to Alistair, who now gets an over-enthusiastic greeting, and all the leader-of-the hunt kudos.

Me she mostly ignores, except at supper-time. That's me put in place - little does she know I saved her from the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Ah well...

The Firebreak Files #2

Twenty four hours down the line and my leg is beginning to feel better...lots of rest, recuperation and reading, as prescribed!

Really I'm just thankful it was not far worse - if I had turned the other way and Baskerville had hit my shin...really NOT the time to be in A&E with shattered bones!

Last night we watched, as we often do on a Saturday evening, some old clips from TotP on some Freeview channel...the Big Hits '64-'75...GlamRock of the mid seventies looked quite grey and sedate in comparison with what was on offer on live TV.  Even the previews of Strictly made my eyes ache!

Earlier, while still wallowing in the sixties, he, for some obscure reason, asked: 'What IS a Fandango, anyway?'

As if the rest of the words of 'Whiter Shade of Pale' made any sense whatsoever!!

I am reading, for the second time this year, Ferrante's 'Neapolitan Quartet', and have got to the final volume, the harrowing 'Story of the Lost Child'. In which Lenu and Lila grow old, sometimes together. My bookmark is a card sent me by my best mate, years ago, and we spend some time on Whatsapp this afternoon wondering which of us is which of the two elderly ladies. And which of us is Lenu and which Lila...

The Firebreak Files #1

Yesterday started wet, again, but by lunchtime the sun had come out, though the breeze was chilly. 

I set off with my mate for a last stroll along the prom before the 'firebreak' shuts things down again for a couple of weeks. We took Kitty down to the beach for a few minutes, then back up the steps to the prom.

And then, in an instant, everything changed - 

there was An Altercation with An Alsation, which took a bound towards Kitty. I got in the way and somehow was hit? head-butted? bitten? on the back of my leg...

Which immediately went into total spasm from my toes to my groin, accompanied by a howl you could probably hear in Dublin...

So, the afternoon's shenanigans were ruined and I spent the rest of the day in a bit of a state of shock, wrapped up in a 'blanket-fort' on the settee, as the pain gradually localised around my calf.

A well-medicated night's sleep was punctuated only by Alistair returning at 3am from a late-night Samaritans shift (during which he and his colleague played a part in Saving a Life!).

And we slept late.

And today, the first of these Firebreak Days it has rained continually, and I have barely moved from the settee...

The pain is gradually subsiding, though I still can't put my foot down.

I hope the Alsation has a headache... and that its owners decide to keep it on a short lead...

Melancholy Meanderings

Melancholy has been a part of the fabric of my life for as long as I can remember - always 'a black dog flickers in and out of the shadows at the edge of the lawn'

A few years ago I came across these lines in Robert Macfarlane's 'Landmarks', which really resonated with me (love him or not, there are some true gems in his writing):

'Melancholy differs from grief in its chronic nature: it is an ache not a wound, it lies deeper down, is longer lasting, is lived with rather than died of...'

Challenged here to find the 'gold' in the melancholy, I walk in the early autumn woods, with my wonderful dog, and ponder the beauty of my surroundings.

 In the lovely landscape where I am blessed enough to dwell, it isn't a difficult thing to see the gold 'anyway', in spite of the melancholy - the mists drift in from the sea, the leaves are turning, I have porridge in my belly...

But to find the gold IN the melancholy, now that is a different prospect, and for that I am going to have to dig much more deeply...

We have been rewatching 'Detectorists' by the fire of an evening. For those of you who think it is a lightweight British comedy about eccentric Englishmen searching the flat, grey Essex landscape for Saxon treasure, think again!

'Detectorists' is about finding the real gold, not the stuff you think you are looking for. Digging deep? Letting go...?

Post-apocalyptic literature...

...is not a favourite choice for me, but I find I am drawn irresistibly towards it from time to time.

In the 1970s post-atomic-bomb writing was all the rage, and I read and loved 'Riddley Walker' - set hundreds (thousands?) of years after the 'one big one' it inhabits an England of weird but just recognisable language and myth.

I have returned to it time and again over the years and it remains among my top ten books of all time.

As the threat of nuclear disaster has been superseded in recent years by the threat of climate catastrophe, I have found myself apologising often...sorry, really sorry, should have seen it coming earlier.

And last winter I even started mentally composing a short story set in a post climate-disaster west Wales - mentally collating Riddley Walker-type phrases, as Kitty and I walked the storm-battered, eroding cliffs.

And now...and now I have just collected from the library a book which has been on my to-read list for a while. Written a few years ago, it tells the story of a world post-apocalypse. Post-pandemic in fact...

I'll let you know how I get on with it.

(Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mantel - should you be feeling brave...)

Wabi Sabi

Reflecting on the loveliness and fragility of life and on living with a gentle touch...

Delicate movement

beauty in transient

and lightest of touch...

Late-summer shadows...

Calendula on a Victorian pitcher

9/11

Remembering how

giant birds of death shattered

our innocent screens

Reflections

in my attic. I bought this lovely candle cupboard about 35 years ago for £35 or so...

My flotilla...

...has a new little barque

attic stairwell

Gathering the shards - 

the shattered, scattered remnants

of impermanence

Beauty in unexpected places

The car has broken down on the edge of the service station on the M4 outside Reading.

While the young man from the AA looks under the bonnet, tuts and makes unintelligible pronouncments, I pick glowing ruby rosehips from the hedge and reflect on the strangeness of life and How Days Turn Out.

Later, at a garage in Basingstoke, he shows me pictures of his dogs and tells me about having to drive to Machynlleth every fortnight, to care for his father who is dying of cancer and his mother who has dementia.

Creative things...

The beauty of imperfection...old and battered floorboards given a bit of tlc:

Candles recycled and a kiln-firing completed:

(Clay was recycled too!)