I am a glassblower.

I work with hot glass.

In order to heat the glass I rely on a steady supply of gas. Methane for anyone interested.

Someone in the building where I work is busy building something. I have no idea what it is they’re building, but it’s loud and dusty and resulted in me getting temporarily lost on my first day back because they’d hidden the door leading to my workshop.

All of that is rather annoying, but I filed it under, “things that happen” and carried on with what needed doing.

Yesterday they cut off our gas supply.

I work in Berlin, not Kiev for goodness sake!

Apparently they were supposed to tell us, but they forgot. Luckily it was lunchtime so neither of us had anything in the flame at the time. That would have been catastrophic.

We spent the afternoon drinking tea, talking about our respective holidays and watching videos of Norwegen fjords.

This morning there was still no gas.

We spent the day drinking tea and learning about northern lights, japanese bead makers, photons, murini artists and penguins, as well as fending off customers who couldn’t get their heads round our lack of gas = lack of completed glassware problem.

To be fair to them, I can’t either.

Roll on tomorrow! DB says I should take bored* games with me, but my colleague says news of us playing chess would spread faster than the news that we have no gas and that that would be bad press.

The Internet is a big place tho so I doubt we’ll get really bored. I just know there are other things I need to do but don’t have time to because I have to sit at work waiting for the chance to actually do some work….

There are some amazing artists out there. If you have time, look at works by Guiseppe Barovier or
Ayako Hattori or
Giacomo Franchini or
Chelsea Bent or
Mario dei Rossi
for starters

Someone sensible (not me) has made a pinterest list of some of them here:

* Yes. I know. Thank you.