Delegation from Mashiko

Went along to help with a group from Mashiko in Japan who have come to St Ives to see the Bernard Leach Pottery and begin to set up a formal twinning type of thing with St Ives.

St Ives & Mashiko are already closely associated because of the potter Bernard Leach (see wiki here and here), but they want to do something more formal. Barry & I went along as business representatives from the town.

This is having a Cornish tea with them, saffron cake, scones with jam & clotted cream, & home made heavy cake, it also involved a lot of decision making as to who sat where for the picture.

As it happens we have 9 Bernard Leach tiles in our lounge abov ethe fireplace as this used to be his studio many years ago & he built the fireplace, it even features in a Japanese homes magazine after a group doing a story on Leach heard about htem & turned up to ask if they could photograph it, a few months later a Jamanese magazine appeared on our doorstep with our house in it !. Wierd how these things happen, although we couldn't read the article as it's in Japanese.