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.