10/10/2026
I’ve been back since January 2025. After being away from Kiln for nearly 3 years. Quite crazy to go from seven days a week to zero. It’s like doing an emergency stop, you just slam on the breaks.
Edinburgh was cool and I said I’d never be back - even thought a friend of mine told me I was full of it - but Newcastle drew me in and here I am. Over a year ago I got back and this time not just Kiln has changed. I have too.
I got myself a terraced house in Heaton with some cool neighbours, I walk the dogs every morning and have a 14 month old baby.
I always saw the regulars at Kiln get houses and babies over its ten year life but to be in that world of babies and dog walks is very surreal.
I don’t know what the next chapter is yet. I do know that Kiln seems to be my home and that’s a shared home with all of you. I also know the pottery is back and thriving like I’ve never seen.
It took 10 years to build a neighbourhood bistro but it’s taken nearly two decades of failing to make a pottery work and I decided to try one more time!
Failing upwards is the plan, trying to remain emotional and passionate. Always pushing in chairs and adjusting plates. Kiln is thriving and I say that with humility and gratitude but also in the knowledge that when you give something your all it doesn’t necessarily work out. A lot of what we have at Kiln is luck and my superstitions have me saluting magpies everyday.
Let’s make this winter the best we can remember. The world is crazy out there and we deserve to celebrate because not everyone can or has cause to. We can always keep those people in our minds when we raise a glass amongst friends.
We’re having a bit of trouble with getting our Kiln operational (mainly a paperwork problem) so we might need a push to sell our pottery as it looks like it’s going to arrive very late in November. Literally no gas engineer on the planet wants to service a kiln! It’s infuriating. So get ready for a mad online shop drop in November. It’s going to be massive. x
