These colourful photos are here to celebrate the two days of Spring we had on Friday and Saturday! On Easter Day yesterday and today we’re back to April showers which are no different from March or February showers.

But Friday was a perfect day to trundle into Vancouver to deliver the remaining jugbirds to Granville Island. After Al and I enjoyed a market lunch sitting outside with Vancouverites, tourists, pigeons and seagulls we went into Circle Craft. True to her word, Betty Haskell’s plans to renovate and improve the gallery/shop layout are already underway. The gallery area will be visible all along the Netloft’s common corridor now that the sales desk is being moved to the far Eastern end of the space. It’s much more open and light now. I’m looking forward to seeing what else is planned.

I left my pots for the closed Gallery of BC Ceramics with the kind staffperson at Crafthouse. I’m told the boxes were taken over to GallBCC the next morning and that they like my silly owls! We plan to go to the opening of ‘Spottery’ there next Saturday.

Not wanting to drive straight home to Port Moody we took a stroll on West 4th Avenue in nearby Kitsilano. Al and I lived in a flat in a long-since torn-down old house on West 5th in 1970-71 and yes, we would like to live there now. Some hope! We found a brave new book store, Ardea at 2025 W 4th, owned by a previous manager of now-closed Duthie Books. She was so helpful in my search for Vancouver-based books for gifts. The Crafts Association of BC has an arrangement to show members’ work there so there’s a nice local and artistic feeling to the store, and comfortable chairs for patient husbands. The latter proved useful as Vancouver potter Nora Vaillant found me. Bless her, she mentioned that she’d learned that I was looking for a salt kiln. Ideas of a possibility she suggested will keep me smiling and inspired to get potting again now! More on that in a few weeks..

Saturday was a garden and house day. The flowers that volunteer for me each year are a joy. The modest bouquet is my nod to Easter and the pot is one I finally accepted that I don’t want to sell.

Our small family was here for dinner yesterday and for once I tried new recipes from Wednesday’s Vancouver Sun. I roasted a nice leg of lamb and with it served yummy mustard & lemon-coated roasted mini potatoes, tzatziki and orange and ginger stir-fried sugar-snap peas and red peppers. Well worth the effort! Steve brought me a delightful present of 3 tools I’d drawn for him. They are cut from galvanized steel and he’s coated them with paint as well so that they don’t rust. I shall use them for making the bottom bead at the base of a jugbird which winds up being the ‘foot’.

Now there are several reasons to fish out that clay.