Middleport Pottery – Entrance
Middleport Pottery on-line. I got there via the Packing House Cafe. Pictures will be of the cafe, if I can find them in my badly catalogued selection of photos.
I looked it up because I’m writing a haibun.
But I then looked up the Trent-Mersey Canal (which runs alongside), Wedgwood, several other canals, afternoon tea, and, eventually Emma Bridgewater. By that time I was so confused I don’t know how I got to her. It could have been via pottery, afternoon tea or the Bridgewater Canal. I really don’t know. I suppose it’s possible that I . . .
I just remembered. I managed to get into Amazon, who had air-drying clay kits and was wondering if Julia would like one. That led to brightly coloured bowls on Amazon and that led to Emma Bridgewater.
Nice cup of tea in the Packing Room – Middleport Pottery
I spotted a nice mug. Then I saw the price. Who pays £30 for a thing to hold tea which breaks when it’s dropped?
That’s when the Inner Bolshevik came to the fore. A vision of rich people letting £30 mugs fall to shatter on their imported limestone floor tiles as they purred “Let them eat cake.”
The Tiny Trot that lives in the inner recesses of my brain perked up too. He does so enjoy a daydream of leaning rich people up against a cloister wall at Harrow and letting fly with a hail of bullets. They are always vintage military rifle in these daydreams. That sort of rifle speaks of a desire for social justice. To use a Kalashnikov would make me seem like a violent sociopath.
It’s strange, isn’t it? Show me a parliament stuffed with privileged people Including members of the Labour Party, and I am left unmoved. Show me a report of rich people behaving badly and I shrug it off, expecting such things to happen. But show me a mug at £30 and something snaps.
Dane – traditional wooden narrowboat
To add to the inner turmoil, Julia doesn’t want an air-drying clay kit. The trouble is that she has a lot of brooches, a new ironing board and a wonderful husband, what more could a woman want?
I did suggest a lathe. I even went so far as to offer a dust extraction system, but she didn’t seem keen. She is dreadfully difficult to buy for.
Mural in cafe
Photos from October 2017. I feel old.
I trust she agrees that you won’t spend £30 on a mug
I also find these over-priced items extremely annoying. Just because they have a posh label and (often) a designer stencil stuck on that starts to peel off within a few weeks, companies assume gullible shoppers are only too happy to fork out exhorbitant amounts of money to own them. And they often do, more fool them. Richard and I are very boring and don’t get each other surprise presents. We say what we’d like to have, maybe giving a choice of two or three things just in case of unavailability, and on that dreadful day when we realise we are another year older we are comforted by a gift of something we really want.
I hope you are both well?
My inner Bolshevik appears when I see grand country houses. I never think of shooting the rich. Rather I dream of talking to them so sensibly that they are converted to my point of view and share their wealth around in a very generous manner.
What more, indeed? That does seem like a lot of money for a mug. On the other hand, as long as it isn’t dropped—no guarantees, of course. I have had my tea mug for nearly twenty years. When you think of it that way, the price doesn’t seem as bad. Perhaps call off the public executions?
I’ll consider it. The immorality of charging that price for a mass produced mug still irks me even if it isn’t dropped.
You are just too nice. 🙂
😉