Pre-Pesach Pressure

What would Pesach be without a little anxiety?So I unloaded Friday's bisc last night [one of the 2 sinks cracked-too near the flame,I think-confirming,if confirmation were needed,the old saw,"if you want one,make two"],glazed 3/4 of a kiln,finished it off this morning,started firing at 10,and now,with a scant hour to go before I need to set off for Monday meditation group [sanga] in Rosh Pina,the pyrometer is showing 1233 degrees,and I'm waiting for cones 8 to show signs of movement-hang on,I'll check again...well,what do you know,both cone 8's [top and bottom of the kiln] are bending their little heads in admirable synchrony-something of a surprise,since the kiln was very uneven all the way up.Thanks to my new enlarged gas-pipes,I was able to blast away with heavy reduction and still get 50-60 degrees temp. rise for the last 4-5 hours,to which I attribute the current happy state of affairs.Most of the day was spent giving the studio a thorough clean,reaching areas of floor that,judging by accumulated filth,have remained undisturbed for a while.Sydney appeared at some stage with friend Assi the bee-keeper and his pick-up,and we man-handled the neatly-broken slabs of salt-kiln into the truck,for re-assembly in Yesod Hamaala sometime soon.We are definitely in that joyous period before a festival when any job can legitimately be put off 'til "after the Holiday".We're now at 1250,and,just like in the books [meaning that it rarely happens in practise] cone 8 is down,top and bottom.The operation seems successful-tomorrow we shall see if the patient survived.