Your world can be turned inside out in an instant.

The words, “Mum I am pregnant” are not words you want to hear from your seventeen year old daughter on Christmas day and I well remember feeling an unhappy mixture of grief, fear and anger. Grief for my daughters loss of innocence, loss of freedoms and loss of all the possible futures that a Mother dreams for her daughter. Fear at what toll a pregnancy would take on her already fragile body and anger that she could be so stupid as to bloody well fall pregnant at her age.

Of course Veronica didn’t fall pregnant accidentally, it was a well planned pregnancy and with the benefit of  20/20 hindsight I have accepted that my teenage daughter knew exactly how her life was gong to proceed and everything has turned out for the best.

Fast forward seven years and Veronica is now 25 weeks pregnant with her third child, a girl baby.

A baby girl that I didn’t realise I was so invested in until I receive a phone call last night in the middle of dinner.

Mum can you take me to the hospital, I haven’t felt the baby move since 4 am.

I am tearing the house apart searching for my bra, trying not to cry, trying to fasten the stupid bra whilst looking for my handbag. One half of my mind is going through my personal checklist of the accoutrements of appearing in civilisation, bra-teeth-shoes and the other half is going, please don’t let the baby be dead please don’t let the baby be dead please don’t let the baby be dead.

I was completely fine until I had to tell “The Spouse” where I was going.

Telling “The Spouse” anything always brings me totally undone, because as long as the words stay inside my head they can not possibly come true. Saying the words aloud gives them power, so I whispered where I was going, burst into tears and tripped over the fucking dog on my way out the door.*

Veronica lives a good sixty minutes drive, away from the hospital and we drove  for fifty five minutes, not saying much to each other but both aware of each others fears, until the baby gave a little kick, five minutes away from the hospital.

Bloody children.

So today I am a little bit drained and I am contemplating eating more chocolate than is healthy but you know sometimes chocolate is a necessity.

*the dog wasn’t harmed, though he did look slightly annoyed to be trodden on and yelled at the same time.

But it is my refrain.

I want my Mother, my Mother is Dead.

Months ago I was listening to Pamela Stephenson in conversation with Richard Fidler, or someone similar. Stephenson was talking about her latest book Sex Life: How Our Sexual Experiences Define Who We Are  By asking the audience how many times a day they thought about sex, and confiding that she thought about sex at least ten times before she even got out of bed, Stephenson encouraged her audience to really concentrate of those fleeting sexual thoughts and to be honest with their response to her question. Not surprisingly we think about sex an awful lot through out the course of the day.

Of course by then, I was thinking about sex as well, as that was where the conversation had led me. As I was trying to work out just how many times a day I thought about throwing “The Spouse” to the ground and having my evil way with him, my internal dialogue drifted down a different path and I started to think about how many times a day I thought about my Mother.

Thoughts of my mother and the constant ache that is her loss, play in the back of my psyche like a quiet soundtrack of grief, with occasional loud cymbal clashes of hurt,  punctuating the song with sharp flashes of pain.

I want my Mother, my Mother is Dead.

My daughter rang me last night to talk about Amy. Veronica told me that she had written a post sharing her frustrations at just how difficult Amy is to parent at the moment. Mum is the person Veronica needs to talk to about Amy, not me. Veronica needs the practical advice that only her grandmother can give her, as Mum successfully parented a stubbornly defiant, girl child of her own.

This excerpt from Veronica’s latest blog post describes the challenges she is facing now with her wonderfully feisty daughter.

TIME OUT is my other weapon in my ever decreasing arsenal, as she shouts at me that she WILL NOT GO and YOU CAN’T MAKE ME and YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME.

It’s frustrating and admirable how defiant she is in the face of two parents staring her down. Even as I march her to time out, with, if I’m being honest, the help of her ear because there was no other option short of bodily lifting her, I am proud of her spirit and of her anger, and her ability to decide what she wants and aim for it no matter what.

I can not give my daughter what she needs. I am next to useless to her in situations like these because all I can do is glory in the fact that my grand daughter so like me. As I make sympathetic sounds and offer useless advice, inside I am secretly thrilled to bits with this evidence of my grand daughters spirit. Veronica knows this and it breaks my heart a little bit more.

I want my Mother, my Mother is Dead.

We are not allowed to grieve in Australia. We are certainly not allowed to grieve for the inappropriately long time that I have been grieving for my mother. It is coming up to three years, surely you must be over it by now, this grief of yours Kim is a tired refrain.

It might well be a tired refrain, but it is my refrain.

I want my Mother, my Mother is Dead.

The writing of this post was triggered by reading  this article, The Love of my Life by Cheryl Strayed

I am okay at the same time as I am not okay. I am supported by my close friends, as well as good online friends, but that support doesn’t stop me from wanting my Mother and being broken by the fact that my Mother is dead. Again and again and again.

I want my Mother, my Mother is Dead.

My very best friend Tanya, arrived on the morning of Veronica’s wedding with her car boot packed full with brightly coloured gerberas.

Gerberas are such a happy flower.

These images make me smile.

I have been receiving emails, internet. Emails from people asking if I have any more wedding photos.

You people are insatiable you know.

Luckily I am not the kind of evil witch who would deny you your fix of pretty images of my daughters wedding.

What sort of person refuses to share wedding photos anyway?

So here are some more photos.

Because of the rain we didn’t take any formal posed photos. I don’t know why we didn’t as we were all pretty soggy and a bit more standing about in the rain wouldn’t have mattered.

These images were taken by my friend Tan, My Father in Law, Richard and myself.

This cake was made with love by our friend Watershedd and shipped down from Sydney. It is very very nice.

This cake was a surprise and was made by Veronica’s school friend Catherine, who is in the process of setting up a facebook page for her Cat Cakes. I love the little fingers reaching for the flowers.

My friend Tan, used to be a florist in a previous life and she turned up with a boot full of gerberas as her wedding gift to Veronica.

Gerberas are such happy happy flowers.

Meanwhile back in the house, the wedding preparations were going ahead.

The bridal party walked down the aisle in the rain.

Vows were exchanged

This is Veronica and her little brother David

This is Veronica and her childhood friend Kiandra. I posted this one because in this photo you can see just how exhausted my little girl is. Von had well and truly used up all her spoons by this stage.

But this next photo is my favourite. Veronica is a beautiful young woman and Nathan adores her.

Hi internet, as some of you might be aware, yesterday was my daughter Veronica’s wedding Day. Veronica chose to get married at her home as she has a lovely big paddock with plenty of space.

The day was filled with highs and lows but the overwhelming feeling I had at the end of the day was satisfaction and pride. My daughter was a beautiful,beautiful bride and her husband Nathan gazed at her with the adoration that is her due. My grand daughter Amy was a lovely flower girl and my grandson Isaac coped a lot better with the wedding than I imagined.

The wedding could not have come together as perfectly as it did without the help of friends and family. The four teenagers that came to help us set up, worked tirelessly and they honestly have a champion in me for life now.

But…

It rained.Which cancelled out the livestream and we had a mini disaster with one of the cakes.

Because of the rain and limited amounts of shelter we all managed to get very soggy and I didn’t take many photos, as cameras and the rain don’t mix very well.

Lets start with the cakes.

Veronica’s high school friend Catherine made a surprise wedding cake for Von and it was beautiful and quirky just like my daughter. Here it is on the left, next to the extremely alcoholic and delicious wedding cake made for us by our friend Watershedd and shipped down from Sydney. Isaac had, had enough by now and the sensory overload was really kicking in.

The cake had been delivered by Catherine Davey cake maker extraordinaire, and set up in pride of place in the marquee. It looked tuly beautiful and unfortunately I was too busy running around like a headless chook to take any photos.

A stray gust of wind blew the side of the marquee in and sent the cake flying through the air to land in the grass, ruined. That is my bestie, Tan in the blue t-shirt. Tan was responsible for all the lovely flowers that decorated the marquee, the chairs as well as the bouquets.

The teenagers didn’t let the fact that the cake was lying in the grass in pieces, upset them at all and they set about trying to fix the cake. My son David and his bestie Rhiarna found all the cake pieces, laid them out on a table and picked off all the grass, re-attached the figurines heads and did a quick poke back in of all the roses. My God daughter Bonnie and her boyfriend, Gordon came and found me in the house and asked if we had any icing and a palette knife as Gordon was pretty confident he could repair the cake. I looked at this quiet young man with his backwards cap and thought, “Really?”

It turns out that, young Gordon wants to be a pastry chef, so if anyone out there knows of an apprenticeship in the offing I would highly recommend this young man. He worked quietly, efficiently and without any fuss. He confidently re assembled the wedding cake and I am sure that only the cakes creator Catherine could tell the difference.

Now onto the photos of the actual event. The ceremony was scheduled for 12.30 pm. At 12.00 pm it really started to rain. The celebrant started to get very bossy and I had to keep on shooing her out of the house saying that the Bride wasn’t quite ready yet. In hindsight I should have either insisted that Veronica get ready here at home or I should have made my son stand guard at the door with strict instructions that no one was to come into the house at all.

But indulging in hindsight has to be the best waste of energy there is.

We had decorated canvas chairs with flowers and formed them into semi circle type arrangement without a Bride’s side or a Groom’s side as I thought this was a nice way to symbolise the joining of two families.

We had marked out the aisle with a line of flowering plants.

Everything was in place.

The bride was delivered in style in her Father’s 1966 Valiant. The wedding ribbon is the ribbon that was used for my wedding. Isaac decided that it was all too much for him at this point and his legs stopped working.

Not even the rain could put a damper on our day now or quell the pride that The Spouse and I felt at seeing our beautiful girl walk down her country aisle.

Once all the wedding party were in place I tried to take Isaac away with me. But the promise of pressing the buttons on Nanny’s camera was not as enticing as the lure of his mothers arms.

And so my daughter Veronica married her long time partner Nathan, with both of their beautiful children, quite involved in the ceremony as well.

Amy took her role as flower girl very seriously and stood beautifully still for the whole ceremony even though she was standing in the rain. I was very proud of her.

Even after twenty five years together I still think this fella is pretty yummy.

If you would like to link up your Sunday Selection below, please do. I dont know how much time I will have near a computer today. But I promise I will get around to visit you all within the next couple of days. Thank you for being a part of my daughters day. The gifts that we received from our internet friends was quite humbling. Thank you.

Hi internet, the big day has finally arrived.

We will be live streaming Veronica and Nathans wedding at 12.30 pm AEST.

If I have time I will come back and put a link in this blog post and do a test run at approximately 10. am AEST

If I run out of time the

Livestream link will be here on Veronica’s blog.

Tomorrow I will be post the wedding photos in a gala Sunday Selections.

Now I am off to do the final set up for the big day (squee).

I opened the kiln for a quick peek yesterday afternoon and  it looked to be a successful firing.

You have no idea how pleased I am to be able to type those words internet.

I used three new glazes, I made a further two glazes using very old glaze ingredients. I didn’t have time to take notes whilst I was glazing, as I was way behind schedule and I fired to a lower temperature than normal.

In short I was leaving myself open to any number of ceramic disasters.

But the Kiln Gods were smiling on me and I am reasonably pleased with some of the work that came out of the kiln.

The glaze I used on these slipcast cups is one formulated by ceramist Ruth Langman and it is a clear gloss glaze that fires well across the mid range to higher range of stoneware temperatures. I programmed the kiln to fire to 1250 degrees centigrade but cone 9 was well down so I think the kiln is firing 20 degrees higher than the temperature gauge is telling me. I added one and a half percent of cobalt carbonate to the RL glaze and this is the result.

*Ruth Langman clear.

silica  ————————— 31

Kaolin—————————10

Neophyline syenite  ———-30

gerstley borate  —————21

wollastonite   ——————–8

I added 1.5% Cobalt Carbonate to make this blue.

I used a combination of three glazes on these plates WCC Black, WCC Green and RL blue

Ben’s WCC Base glaze

Potash Feldspar –30

Silica  —————33

Whiting ————-17

Kaolin —————15

To make a black glaze add 5% Iron Oxide, 2% Cobalt oxide 2%Manganese dioxide

To make green add 4.5% copper oxide.

Here are the glazes on my slipcast cups.

I haven’t made a lot of blue work before. I have used blue as a highlight on my ceramic cups but I have steered away from blue because, because? Actually I am not really sure why I have avoided blue glazes.

Maybe because blue can be so overpowering and my environmental plates are all earthy tones suited to reduction firings.

But I think I might have to follow this lot of work up with some more blue things.

Now for a WEDDING update.

The preparations for the wedding are all on track. My grand son Isaac is recovering from his virus and I am recovering from the fright he gave me. My back is mostly better and my infection has cleared up.I didn’t fire as many plates as I would have liked due to the unexpected trip to the hospital. But I have five plates for my daughter’s wedding present that I am very pleased with, some serving platters that turned out very well (photos later) and a lovely large salad bowl.

I am now feeling quite excited about the wedding rather than stressed. Veronica and I tested the livestream channel on Tuesday and we will both put live stream links up on our blogs on Saturday morning so that you can watch the wedding either here on my blog or over on Veronica’s blog, Sleepless Nights

And now internet I am off up to the local hall to fill my trailer up with folding chairs so that we all have somewhere to sit on Saturday (squeee)

In ten days time my daughter Veronica is getting married. I have been to the edge of hysteria and back a couple of times in the past few days, but as always it has been the mental picture of Tim Brooke Taylor running around shouting, “I am a teapot” that has saved me.

I am a potter after all and I know a thing or two about teapots. Fiddly bloody things they are. Tea pots require precision and patience, two virtues that I am not overendowed with at all, and when one’s only daughter is getting married in ten days time there is never room for hysterics. Mild panic and hyperventilation I can deal with, but hysteria will never do.

I had grand plans of making stacks and stacks of plates for Veronica’s wedding, lovingly crafted and beautifully glazed. I had visions of friends and family eating cake  and commenting on how lovely it was to eat from handmade plates.  Of course whilst not wanting stealing the limelight from the bride, I nonetheless discretely basked in the glow that was my due as Mother of the bride and erstwhile creator of fabulous plates.

It was a lovely daydream, I was even wearing a fabulous hat with purple roses.

But of course time is fluid in my world and suddenly all the time I had to make those glorious plates had vanished in the twinkle of an eye and my deadline was looming. It was November the first and I of course was plateless as well as hatless.

So I set to work and made some plates for my girl. Not the hundreds that I had seen in my dreams, but enough for a lucky few to admire from a distance, if they make it out of the kiln in time.

The kiln is cooling down as we speak and I should be able to open it tomorrow. If the Kiln Gods are smiling on me, all the wedding ware should emerge unscathed and uncracked and I can get down to the serious business of glazing the bloody things.

The deadline is now, rather tight.

Hi internet, I have so much to tell you, so many unwritten posts are busily roiling about inside my head. But I am so pressed for time that all the words needs must stay inside my head and I worry that all the good ones will slide out my ears to slowly drip, invisible and unwritten into the atmosphere.

There are certain pressing matters that  demand my attention. The most important of these being the fact that, my daughter,Veronica is getting married in 18 days.

Veronica is being very Zen about her impending wedding whilst I am starting to quietly panic.

In 18 days there will be a wedding.

Veronica tells me to relax, it will be fine and she humours me as I ask pressing questions like, do you have enough chairs, or more importantly do you think your ancient toilet is up to the job honey? So while my mind is full of details like hiring chairs and trestle tables, sorting out a way to livestream the event and organising a porta-loo. Veronica’s mind is full of  her immediate concerns such as deciding if she can walk across the room without dislocating anything major.

I am trying to be calm.

But my baby is getting married in 18 days.

Otherwise my head might just explode and that would be very fucking messy.

Some people are just arseholes. There is nothing you can do about their inherent arseholiness other than stand by with your mouth agape and wonder where on earth they learned their low life skills.

Australia, the lucky country, the land of the fair go, home of the tall poppy syndrome.

Where if you start to shine a bit brighter than all the other stars out there some lowlife will always come along and decide to start throwing a bit of mud.

anonymously of course

*sigh*

Well,
what can I say. firstly congrats on the wedding, Really, you drug your child at 3 am with panadol, didnt you watch today tonights segment on the effects of medicating our children for a “good” nights sleep, oh thats right you have sold out to ACA and Kellogs for a measly few words on allergy free breakfast. Luckily – you didnt make an “idiot” of yourself.

Selling out? Where on earth has all this talk about selling out come from? Veronica has always had advertising on her blog and has always worked with brands.

Drugging her child? For fucks sake.  Amy was sick. You use paracetamol to reduce fever you idiot. You of all people should know that.

I am seriously grumpy today internet. Mainly because I am 99% certain I know who the anonymous arsehat is and that makes me very sad as well.

I am going to play in the garden today because I need to have my hands in the soil. I need to earth myself so that all the negativity is absorbed by the universe instead of fizzling around inside my head and fucking up my balance. And if you scoff at that as old hippy nonsense well then anonymous that is your loss and I advise you to remember that Mammon is a poor excuse for a  god.

I really should follow my own advice to Veronica when dealing with arseholes, which is to stand a little taller, square your shoulders and be secretly pleased that you chose today to wear your teflon shirt so that the shit these arseholes fling, just slides right off.

But I am having a bit of trouble with that advice right now.

Deadshits.