Powys: Welshpool pottery workshop was perfect hen party
'The bride-to-be would like to do some pottery…' were not the words I expected to hear when I asked about her forthcoming hen party plans.
But as it turns out, it was one of the best hen parties I've been on.
There's a growing trend among brides-to-be who are stepping away from the traditional alcohol-fuelled nights out and doing something different.
But an evening like we had would be perfect for a birthday or a simple get-together.
We headed to Welshpool for a taster session with Tara Squibb Ceramics, which is based just outside the town centre and was all set up for us to complete — hopefully — two pieces.
The first, would be a ceramic pocket that would hang on the wall, and the second would be to create a piece on the potter's wheel, in true ' Great Pottery Throw Down ' style.
Tara gave us a quick demonstration before letting us do our thing.
I hopped onto one of the four pottery wheels first and, with a lump of clay in front of me, pressed the pedal and hoped it wouldn't fly off and hit my mother-in-law who was sitting opposite.
As someone who had a quick go once in school, it's certainly harder than it looks. You have to 'fight' with the clay to get it in the centre of the wheel, make sure it doesn't dry out, and then hope you can keep it circular as you start to create a well in the middle. But this is where it gets really hard.
You then have to tease the walls up. You don't want the wheel to go too quickly, you don't want the walls to get too thin, and you don't want the clay to dry out. Mine was going ok — or so I thought — when disaster struck and the wall of my pot cracked and the whole thing flopped. Tara tried to save it, but it was gonner, so off it went to 'Keith', the bucket where all the scraps go.
I kept Keith busy with my second attempt, but on my third and final attempt, I took my time, tried to remember everything Tara had said and managed to create something that resembled a small pot crossed with a vase — I'll let you decide — but I'm sure I'll find a use for it at home.
Some of those with me were much more at ease with the wheel, creating two or three different items, including pots, bowls and dishes.
After a quick clean-up, I went over to the pocket-making station. I'm not particularly imaginative when it comes to art, and I won't lie, I stole some ideas from the other girls. As time was running short after my three goes on the wheel, I decided to keep it simple.
Tara had provided lots of different tools to create patterns. From lace doilies to buttons, letter stamps to cutters, there was a plethora of items we could use, and it really demonstrated, as Tara said herself, how you can give a piece of clay to a group of people and not one of them will produce the same thing.
Before we knew it, three hours had flown by, and most importantly, the bride-to-be had had an amazing time, as had the rest of us. A few of us are keen to have another go again.
Tara was fantastic. She kept an eye on everyone and provided support and ideas wherever they were needed, but equally was happy to take a step back and let us have a go.
She will let the items dry out before putting them in the kiln, and hopefully, in a few weeks, we will get an email to say they are ready.
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The Herald Scotland
15 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Review: Literary masterpiece may be the best book of the 21st century
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Scottish Sun
3 days ago
- Scottish Sun
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Spectator
28-05-2025
- Spectator
Repetitive strain: On the Calculation of Volume, Books I and II, by Solvej Balle, reviewed
I have counted the days. It is my 122nd eighteenth of November. I have come a long way from the seventeenth and I do not know whether I will ever see the nineteenth. But the eighteenth arrives again and again. This is life for Tara Selter, the protagonist of On the Calculation of Volume, a mesmerising projected septology by the Danish writer Solvej Balle that will make anyone who has ever longed to pause time rethink their wish list. Book I, published in Denmark in 2020 and on this year's International Booker Prize longlist, opens on Day 121. Tara, an antiquarian bookseller, is hiding from her husband Thomas in the spare room of their cottage in Clairon-sous-Bois, a fictional town in northern France. She follows his movements by the sounds he makes, from the gush of water through the pipes when he fills a kettle to the faint click when he turns on the gas. She is hiding because she can't face explaining to him – yet again – how she fell through a rift in time one autumn morning in Paris, while away for two nights on a book-buying trip. Despite burning her hand on an old gas heater, everything had gone to plan, until waking on what should have been 19 November at the Hôtel du Lison, Tara's regular Parisian bolthole. First, the newspaper had the same stories as the previous day. Then, at breakfast, Tara watched the same hotel guest drop the same slice of white bread as the previous morning. It was the same day, happening all over again. 'The weather, too, was the same.
