I’ve wanted to make this for a while (click ‘more’ for a bit of thrilling backstory). Building on some unprofessional yogurt pot candles I made during summer, I had a go at making a candle dipped in a different layers of colours (three; blue, red, and yellow. We like our primary colours). It was pretty difficult as you’re no doubt meant to use giant vats of wax, which I unsurprisingly don’t have and instead started with small Activia pots to begin with and ended up using bean cans. It’s pretty bumpy since towards the end it outgrew the beans pot and I ended up just pouring the wax over it. It should be nice when it melts. I suppose it’s one of those ugly children type things again. I think it’s lovely anyway.

Back when I was in Year 6 back in 1999 we went on a school trip to Guernsey. Aside from visits to the dark and eerie WWII underground hospital and some sort of expedition to watch a canon be fired, we also ended up in a place where they made swanky candles. They were essentially multicoloured, dunked into wax, cold water, and then a different colour [and repeat until done], then cut up so you could see exactly what was going on inside. Two sensible peple (not me) were chosen to have a go at making and cutting one each (I didn’t really fancy hacking up my candle with a pair of blunt scissors), and I’ve found some old photos courtesy of my Pa at home arguing with my old scanner. Apparently during the year I also developed a love for taking photos at 45 degrees.

Shortly after the candle-making we ran into Simon Thomas of blue Peter fame who was banding about filming a show there (luckily I’ve left my garish fleece-wearing days behind me, no doubt to recant them in my old age). According to Brownies, Blue Peter is still cool these days. We all mobbed him with cameras. In a strange way, the turnover of blue Peter presenters makes me sad.