'Raking all over'

Oh dear - bad pun. It could've been worse but luckily I've been listening to The Who Live at Leeds, which is always good inspiration.  I've been thinking long and hard about what to do with some of the materials that I have that will not cope with a high temperature wood firing, such as the fenland clays from Cambridgeshire and have started the slow process of transferring ideas into 3D forms.

Surprisingly the relentless drizzle of the past 12 months has stopped for quite a prolonged period of time, so I've started preparing for my new kiln. This photo is after quite a lot of work (seriously!), clearing old elder and raking up the ivy that chokes everything round here.

This is how it looks now - pretty much levelled off and ready for post hole digging. I'm going to use steel this time to make the frame (far more sensible), then make a good solid pad to build the kiln on. It's going to be a shortish stumpy train kiln with a Bourry type firebox on the front and a single 69cm width by 69cm length chamber and I'm going to use it for more experimental firings. I intend to fire it alone, for up to 20 hours and will start off with some mid range temperature firings.