I finally opened the last of the storage boxes in which I kept my tools during the workshop rebuild: carving gouges. That means that I haven’t done any carving for over a year. Whilst I’m a bit rusty thanks to the Boeshield the tools aren’t. The block of lime I use to practice new carvings has been sitting in the wood rack looking plaintive for several months. Finally I got round to planing it down to start afresh. It’s nice to know that any errors can so quickly be erased!

If it was stone it would be a clean slate. What do we call in in wood? A clean board?