Dave the Blacksmith

Today would have been my mums 60th birthday. Anniversaries and birthdays are always tough, so I decided to plan to do something on this day rather than just feeling sad at home/work.
I went on a free half day Blacksmithing course just up the road, and had a really good time.
There were 4 of us on the course, and we learned the basics, watched Dave making some pieces then had a go ourselves too. There was a lot of concentrating as the hot metal really was very hot, so we had to be really careful and wear safety goggles/gloves etc. I'm looking forward to the next course and am hopefully going to make a poker that I can then use at home to prod wood about in the woodburner :-)