Another vintage year of potters camp. This year saw more people attending than ever before with entry limited to 50. To cope with the extra numbers, cars were parked in an adjoining field. To keep us all clean, Jerry built an extra shower and toilet block out of rather fetching blue doors.

The long weekend stretched over four days starting on Thursday with general preparations and a start to glazing. The large wood kiln was fired to earthenware again this year but to add some extra excitement, Rob Bibby provided help, advice, tools and materials for glazing.

Rob showed us how he creates his complex majolica decorations by applying under-glaze colours and oxides, over a dipped glaze coat. The colours are either sprayed with an airbrush or mixed with glaze and applied with brushes and sponges. In these ways we were able to quickly build up layers of colour, or even selectively remove colour.

At the same time, Margaret Gardener and Jeremy Nichols were leading the salt and soda glazing and slipping. All pots were lined with a shino glaze. The exteriors were treated in two ways. Margaret's method was to dip in slip, possibly adding further slips with brush or other means. Jeremy's technique was based on applying a very thin shino layer as a base into which to spray stains - either blue or black. The spray gun was extremely fine and even, allowing finely graduated fades in intensity - much more so than with Rob's airbrush which has a larger and more varied droplet size.

Meanwhile, Tony Pugh was helping us get to grips with the complex reduction glazes he uses to such amazing effect. His rich surfaces are built-up from several layers of different glazes. For example he recommended Tesha, green celadon, blue sponging slip and finally copper red for my bowl.

In retrospect, we should have spread the glazing over a longer period. The pots needed longer to dry between glaze coats causing problems that became evident after firing as crawled glazes and flaking slips - mainly in the soda firing. It was late in the day and coming on to rain which didn't help the drying process much either.

Friday saw kiln packing, some rain, and the soda, salt and reduction firings started. The soda in particular needed to start early because it takes so long to cool. The salt cools much more quickly but Jeremy finds it easier to gauge reduction at dusk when the flame is easily visible. He certainly got his wish too because long after Frank had finished his BBQ, we were all crowded around the roaring kilns, drinking and chatting into the night. A big thanks to Frank and Heather (assistant/organiser) for the food and cooking.

Saturday started fine so we determined to fire the wood kiln before the rain came, as assuredly it did. The firing was quick, starting at 7.15am and finishing some 1100 degrees later at about 2.30pm. We shared what we initially thought was a dangerously small woodpile with Frank and his smoke and pit firings - made in old oil drums - and with the boys, Chris and Jamie and their woodfire Raku kiln. I think they must be our most experienced kiln builders now as they've had to rebuild that raku kiln every year from a fairly sorry state.

All the while (potters camp is like this), at the back of the house, Beryl ran a tile workshop, surrounded by Raku madness. She demonstrated several methods of making dating back to medieval times and explained that the thick, closely laid tiles have three bevelled and one flat side. The bevels slope the opposite way from modern grouted tiles allowing seamless surfaces to be laid. The flat edge is for standing them on in the kiln. The tiles had a relief pattern impressed into them in various ways. The deeply cut patterns could then be filled with white clay or shallower reliefs filled with a cream slip.

Saturday evening was Summer Social night. Last year we ended up by the bonfire but with heavy rain pouring down we stayed in the marquee. Peter, provided the musical accompaniment, aided by Lorna on sax.

Throughout the weekend, Ray Auker provided impromptu masterclasses in all forms of throwing. I'm personally very grateful to him for teaching me how to form a jug spout properly. Martin and Chris provided moth interest with their moth trap, although on the first night the rain reduced their haul to three rather cross looking hornets.

Sunday was a day of anticipation, excitements, surprises and the inevitable disappointments - we opened the kilns. Every firing produced something beautiful. We all crowed around to see what had become of our pots as the kilns gave up their secrets. Jan Burridge again produced the best soda fired pot - a little porcelain teapot. Liz Lewis got some excellent plates from the earthenware wood firing. Helen Humphreys got a beautifully serene face from the reduction stoneware, and so the list goes on. The wood firing was probably the most mixed result with some perfect results and others very badly overfired. I suspect that the kiln isn't ideal for firing earthenware pots when it is easily capable of getting to stoneware.

For next year, we probably need to timetable the glazing more carefully. We probably need to do something about the wood kiln because we are putting lots of very carefully decorated pots into it and ruining half of them. The salt and soda are massively over subscribed - Jerry ended up doing another Salt firing on Sunday. And we missed Mark Boyd, not least for his experimental firings - something we need to reinstate for next year I think, especially after the fantastic stories from Aberystwyth this year. Kilns made of paper have been suggested, personally I fancy a Sandra Lockwood style 'Long-throat' wood-fire salt kiln, or an anagama of course!

You would have been unlucky not to get at least one reasonable pot from one of the firings, but in the end, it's not the wining, it’s the taking part that counts. In summary, an excellent weekend and a big thank you to all the activity leaders and helpers, and most especially to Jerry.

Ian.