A = art class

Saturday was kick-off day for 26 Weeks. It was icy cold in New York but the sun was dazzling, shame I wasn’t. Friday night’s one glass of wine led to what felt like one hundred glasses and while I would’ve loved nothing more than to stay very, very still and cuddle a never ending mug of hot coffee I refused to fall at the first hurdle so I hauled myself out of bed and got ready to have a go at crafting my very own mug in a clay class.

One sausage roll later from, in my opinion, the best sausage roll makers in the City www.tuckshopnyc.com and I was feeling vaguely human again as we trotted along (by we I mean me and hubby-to-be Simon who generously gave up an afternoon of Premiership football to join me, perhaps regrettably now) to Chinatown to New York’s Education Alliance http://www.edalliance.org/ a non-profit organization that “changes lives and renews the minds & spirits of the weary”. Weary is definitely a word I would used to describe myself, as for the changing lives part well that remained to be seen, lets say I wasn’t holding my probably slightly boozy smelling breath.

In we go to be greeted by a very smiley man who tells us our names sound like movie star names, quite odd as couldn’t really be further from the truth but in my fragile state I’m happy with the compliment and the warm welcome. The classroom is pretty cramped, fairly hot and smells of clay, naturally. We grab the last two seats and settle in for a fairly long demonstration by the teacher. One thing is clear, clay is simply not just roll and go people. It’s all about patience. Oh dear.

We begin and it’s messy and tricky and very repetitive but I’m remembering to be patient. While stroking my clay lovingly into shape I check out the other people in the class, a good hodgepodge, there’s the girl who won’t stop beaming at everyone in a Stepford Wife way, there’s the chatty girl who just wants to make friends but is getting nowhere with me, hangover = not chatty. Then there’s the obligatory guy who smells bad, why is there always one to be found in a classroom? Dance classes, food classes, clay classes, all classes…smelly person. But then there are a couple of people who are just genuinely nice, big-hearted, warm spirited and above all patient. Their mugs are good, very good. Mine isn’t and towards the end I pretty much convince myself that mugs don’t need handles, they’re just for show-offs, until I see Simon’s managed to create one for his mug, clearly there’s no way can I go home with the booby prize pen pot and he gets the gold medal mug so I sort of slap one on and I’m done. It’s not going to start a new career for me and I certainly don’t think it’s going to change my life but I’ve made a mug and in three weeks it will be baked and ready to take home. It felt good, I’d done something new, I’d got off my bum, I’d brought a new mug into the world.

As we walked home we received a text message from our friend who we blame entirely for the night before, he had a new suggestion for letter A….“A is for Aaah f**k it, I’ll start next week”. Nice.

Ps: pictures to come next week with letter B, an oversight with letter A. B = Blagging it Backstage at the Ballet on Friday night, not going to be easy but I’m going to give it a go. Wish me luck!