This is going to be a rather picture heavy blog post but I hope it is of interest. We’ll start with a look at traditional management of the chestnut pollards then visit a museum which was the highlight of my time in Galicia. The scene in the picture below has become unusual in Europe in the last 200 years but…
This post is a plug for Lluis and Anna’s rather lovely holiday cottage in the mountains of northern Spain. It is called “Casa dos Artesans” and I will I am sure be returning with the family. It is the perfect spot for a group of folk who don’t want the standard beach holiday. If you are into walking, wildlife, craft,…
I am back from a fantastic time in Galicia, Spain. I have lots of pictures and some very interesting things to share which will take several posts so I’ll start with the thing that paid for the trip which was teaching on a short course on internet marketing for craftspeople. This is Cristosend Galicia home of Lluis and Anna who…
Tonight I set off for Galicia, Spian where I will be staying with friends Anna Champeney and Lluis Grau. I will be helping them with a seminar on internet marketing for craftspeople. In Spain aparantly few traditional craftspeople have websites though I just checked and internet access levels are not far behind the UK. One of the things I will…
These are some new porringers I turned a while ago and are now dry, oiled and ready to go. I photographed them with a new lens I treated myself to out of my Artisan of the year money. It’s a canon 85mm f1.8 for the technically minded but the beauty of it is that it takes great pictures in low…
Yesterday was quite a day. I went to Cliveden House for the Country Living Magazine and Balvenie whisky “Artisan of the Year” awards and was very pleased and more than a little surprised to be named their “Artisan of the Year”. Cliveden is very grand, I wished I had parked my van in the gap in the middle here. Susy…
Yesterday was one of those days when the wood just worked beautifully. I cut up a nice labrnum log specially to make a large mazer, the first we have done with a 7″ rim. Then I cut up part of a lovely burr maple to make mazers and quaiches. I think they came out really nicely. It was raining whilst…
Having been running spoon carving courses for several years now this is the first where we managed three days without a single cut. Carving with knives is perfectly safe if you are careful and learn a specific set of safe efficient cuts. This weekend we ran a developers spooncarving course for folk who had some experience or had been on…
I built this fence 20 years ago whilst working for the National Trust at Ide Hill in Kent, we used storm blown sweet chestnut which came from the wood a few yards away. I visited the property for the first time again last weekend and was pleased to see the fence is holding up well. Sweet chestnut has a high…
In 1987 the most powerful storm in 200 years hit Southern England uprooting millions of trees. The following year I got a job as a National Trust Warden clearing and replanting the storm damaged woodlands at Toy’s Hill the property at the epicentre of the storm where 95% of the trees were flattened. Last weekend I had a committee meeting…
