3 days in

Its 3 days since I arrived in the small Harbour town of Skælskør in Denmark. I am settling in nicely.

My first day started with breakfast, then I headed out on a "research based" wonder before our introduction at 11am. I left without my phone or a map,

just a sketchbook which I made some bad, sketchy maps in as I walked aimlessly, but secretly trying to reach the harbour, which I did and was beautiful, with more of those characteristic yellow and terracotta houses on the other side of the water. I used yellow houses along with carlsberg house, dead fish and pile of acorns as landmarks on my maps. After admiring the harbour and soaking up some early morning sunshine I started heading back.

With about 10 minutes to spare before 11am I realised I was lost and asked an old man walking his dog. It took a while to establish that we could both speak English and that I wanted to get to "ah the ceramik workstatt?!" he told me he didn't know where it was but that he'd drop of his 'Hund' at his friends house where he was staying and then drive me in the car... I followed him round the street and got into his old red van which smelt like his 'hund' and took a few minutes to start. As soon as we got down the road I realised where we were and quickly directed him to Guldagergaard, dropping into the dinning room just in time for coffee, danish pastries and our meeting with Richard!

The rest of the day was spent with our introduction, tour of the studio, discussing our plans for our projects, another trip into the town where we explored the houses

on the otherside of the harbour and I gave myself such bad pins and needles drawing the melting ice on the water's surface I thought I was going to topple of the boardwalk into the frozen sea! Then another communal feast, some local beer (theres a brewery in the town) and a film.

Saturday was drizzly and grim and I spent the day thinking through ideas, got some clay and started some tests. I'm working with a red brick clay, inspired by the colours hear, to try something other than my usual porcelain and because its really cheap and most of the other clays are very expensive.

I've got in my head that I really want to make a ceramic mountain... think I may just have to make one to get it out of my head.

Denmark doesn't have any mountains.

Sunday began in the studio, making more test tiles.

After lunch I had planned to cycle to a nearby town to get the ferry to a small island to explore and maybe get in some cartography. Me and Jill set off on some of the slightly wobbly and flat tyred bikes towards the port. Turned out to be much further than the 10 minute cycle we'd been told and it was extremely windy, we realised it would be dark by the time we made it to the island and back and Jill was defeated by the wind and headed back. I carried on, past stretches of fields with the occasional house, stopping to photograph formations of ice in the ditches at the side of the road - frozen as abstract maps of flowing water, cracks and melted islands. After a slow 7km I cycled through a forest and to the sea, another beautiful sight, the ferry was just coming in. I sat in a tree and admired the view while eating my Danish pastry. I checked with 3 boat men when the ferry runs and picked up a schedule leaflet - my souvenir of the 14km wind beaten round trip!