Boxing Day Play

Let Me Get Out There !

   Yipeeeee ! a day playing with clay while the world spends a quiet day recovering from yesterdays celebrations, now that's what I call enjoying Boxing Day. I think if I had to spend a second day sitting around doing nothing it would send me mad so let me get out there on that wheel, I have loads to do. First there are pots and bowls to trim and turn followed by throwing more pots on the wheel and with all that done I get to make pendants and beads, how can I not be happy with the day ahead.
   The strong winds have turned to a gentle breeze and the sun is filling the garden, it's more like a spring morning rather than Christmas, birds are feeding on every station and the swans are once again out there across the field, a bright white sea of birds feeding in the sun.
   I'm guessing there will be Hunts held all over the country today, red faced fat snobs sitting on their hunters sipping drinks while dressed in their best hunting jackets waiting for the master of the hunt to start the dogs off on set trails, yet I'm sure hoping the odd fox may appear even if the law says they shouldn't follow it ! People taking their children to watch the nice horses and the colourful riders getting ready to gallop off over the fields but never explaining to the same children what happens when they find Mr Fox.
    A village boy myself and from a village where every year the hunt would meet and still does, you would think I would be a follower, after all aren't us country folk meant to believe foxes kill hundreds of chickens and anything else that moves, well sorry, not this country bumpkin, a fox to me is a beautiful wild animal with as much right to be living in our countryside as you and I and the idea of these wonderful animals being ripped apart by a pack of dogs is one that doesn't sit well in my mind, but hey don't get me started on that, I'll be here all day.
   I like to think of Boxing day more for the true meaning, the day when the land owners and wealthy would repay their workers and servants with an easy day and money boxes were opened and shared out between the poor of the parish, in the big houses a boxed gift would be given to each servant, it was a day when such people as the post man, milk man or refuse collector would call at the houses they serviced for a Christmas box, all in all a day when rich would thank the poor for the work of services they had given through the past year.
   Well, cuppa finished and I'm off to the clay room to play like some little kid with his new Christmas toys, I hope you all enjoy a rest today and if your off to visit family then safe journey.