I am living in Cape Town by the sea again, temporarily (I know I’m so fortunate) and I’m working hard on my new day job which I love.

Working remotely for a company as a project and partnerships manager means a lot of screen time.

Numerous projects all held in teetering piles on the edge of my brain.

After spending a lot of time on screens, I can feel my brain’s hardwiring being rewritten.

We are rewiring human brains and a huge shift in our evolution is happening right now.

In 500 years they will make more sense of it than I can right now;

I do know that all of this code – you reading this – me writing this – this screen displaying this – is going to be a pinprick of history in 1,000 oceans. Absolutely insignificant and meaningless.

A depressing thought that inspires me to hand make even more.

To create things that will outlive me, books, images, handwriting on paper, letters, notes.

I finally joined a pottery class and I am kicking myself for leaving it so long.

I’m a teacher of creativity, so going to a class to learn something from scratch, that I know very little about, has been a major revelation for me in the areas of teaching, learning, skills and techniques.

This is all very good for my personal development and for those of you that I teach in the future.

I am smitten with all things clay.

My first finished item was this tiny little pestle and mortar.

Big enough to grind 5 cumin seeds in which is perfect for my needs living on my own in Africa!

It started as a teeny pinch pot that I made in two minutes but then spent two hours just tweaking and sculpting and perfecting.

Holding the clay in my hand made me as old as the mountains and as curious as a child.

Sheer happy sparkles popped in my brain and I realised it was the perfect antidote for my screen life.

Here’s what I have been making so far. Everything is being fired again and might be ready by tomorrow morning.

It’s so exciting. It’s also a slow process which I am really enjoying. There’s lovely ladies, tea, bread and jam and I am complete.

When I leave Cape Town and head back to Essex, I need to find a ceramics studio or buy a kiln or something.

I never want to stop.

Here’s the link to my Pinterest board for Ceramics. Totally. Obsessed. I want to make everything.

See you soon!

I love December. Bright, cold mornings with pale blue skies.

I feel so lucky to be working in the warm sunny studio on seasonal gifts and ideas.

I’m printing as much as I can between classes, work and chores. I’ve got a whole lot of new inks arriving at the end of this week for upping my block printing on fabric game. The inks we use in class are brilliant, have good stamina and are perfect for learning new techniques but I’m longing to mix my own colours and build my own palettes. I want to build my own jelly like pads of ink that I used when I did block printing in India. They were used for printing over 6 metres of fabric for saris. I’d love to make limited editions of fabric. I’ve been sketching out a multitude of ‘collections’ and I can’t wait to get going with all of my ideas in the new year. My sketch book is packed with some odd looking doodles but I understand my visual notes! It’s interesting how a simple line can remind me of exactly how or what I was looking at, more than a photograph.

Of course I will be sharing my journey on this blog but if it’s regular content you are after my most regular updates are on Instagram.

I try to post something every day.

You can find me here.

All week the couriers have been delivering boxes of supplies for the classes at Out of Bounds.

I’m going to prepare little print packs for class participants.

These are fabulous ink pads from Japan. Long lasting (I’ve had some for 15 years and they still work) and with dense colour application.

I’ve got them for paper printing and fabric printing and this week I’m going to have to try some of the colours out.

Essential Research I call it.