New Spoons!

Well i promised i would post some spoon photos i know you don't really want to hear about nutmeg and aftershave. These three spoons were given as christmas presents to my family. They are three different solutions to the same problem of how to get the food from your bowl to your mouth, on the grand scheme of things they are all very similar. They are made from Hawthorn, Field Maple, Hawthorn. In the New year i will post photos of spoons more regularly and would enjoy any feedback.

Old Spoons!

 I made this spatula around 7 years ago from an ash log, which i always tell people is not a great wood for this kind of thing, it was actually made when i was camping to scrape baked beans from a mess tin, i liked it and took it back worked on it further and sanded it before giving it to my Mum, she uses it daily.

 These are spoons i made from Cherry last december they have been used regularly, they have a carved finish at the time i was reasonably pleased with them but they now seem quite crude.

 These are spoons i made a couple of years ago the nicer ones have been sanded, it is very easy to get the desired shape with sand paper but it is a slow process and not as enjoyable.

the scoop with the leather thonging is one of the first spoons that i made following Green Woodwork (11 years ago), it was turned on a pole lathe, you split the turned billet in half before hollowing the bowl, the spoons were very functional as scoops but weren't very pretty, in those days i was very much into using abrasives these days i feel abrasives take the life out of hand carved objects.

Fire by Friction Sets

Whilst doing my assistantship with MIke Abbott i was making and selling these Friction Fire sets, they sold very well but are not so viable when travelling around, the packaging made them sell much better than by themselves and also turned them into a nice looking gift. I got some of these going for the Wye Wood Project in Herefordshire.

Stuff i made

Well i'm at my parents and taking the oppurtunity to quickly use their camera and take some photos of some things i've made. The bowl in the back is the first bowl i ever made, it was made of green cherry and i can still remember the sweet smell it had, i remember carrying it back to show my mum after school. You probably can't see from here but it's got a massive crack in it where it dried too quick, it was made from a half log and i now know could have done with the first few tight growth rings removed to relieved tension in  it. There is an olivewood (i now only use native woods sourced by me) shot glass on the left which made the vodka at uni taste bad. In front of that is a little ash surf board that could be a key ring or pendent i made one for each of the kids at the school when i left. Amongst the rest is a bit of eccentric turning to make a queen for a chess set, some heads, a couple of pendents and a candlestick. The Bowl and candlestick are now my parents and the rest hang around in boxes as nicknaks and half finished projects waiting to be resurrected.

Beginnings

Little me, or at least littler i'm around 12/13 yr old in this photo, the man is Roger Jones who gave me my woodworking beginnings. He was my CDT teacher at school and was very much into his woodwork, he taught me to turn and in my teens i was very much into turning bowls. skip forward 7 years and i'm working as his assistant in the school, by this time he had a plan to build a timber framed building in the school grounds this is now affectionately known as the Tudor House it's a simple cruck design with wattle and daub, those bit's of green oak were heavy! Whilst working for Roger he had Mike Abbott's book Green Woodwork and from that book we built some pole lathes and shaving horses.

Aftershave

I received some aftershave as a present from my parents and realised i have not used aftershave for several years now, in the past i have spent considerable amounts of cash on luxury soaps and aftershaves, but they became less relevent in my life. The whole concept of aftershave and smells i think is quite interesting. When at Living Wood i got quite used to only showering weekly being outdoors and around fires stopped me from being conscious of my smell and it was a hassle to boil up a big pan of water and hoist it up the tree for a shower. When i was travelling around earlier this year i just had one change of clothes and trying to maintain cleanliness was harder work, i wore natural fibres (cotton and wooll) which i reckon don't smell as bad as synthetics. The pants and socks i wore were thin which meant they were quick to clean and dry, walking a long canals there was plenty of water to wash the underwear i wasn't wearing just with the soap and nail brush i used to wash my body, i would let them dry on my backpack, i had a very thin cotton cloth that i used as a flannel/towel and that dried in an instant and was a lot cheaper than the special antibacterial towels i've seen. When in towns and cities i would wash in toilets at places such as starbucks and tesco, i felt much more comfortable in these big shops than a small independents where those that work there are much more likely to notice and disapprove of your actions, incidentally i also found this with asking for water and charging my mobile phone. To cover up my bad smell i would stand over the fire and smoke myself a little and when walking past gardens with lavendar or rosemary i would pinch a bit and stuff it in my pocket.

Love Spoons?

I got an answerphone message a few days ago from Anthony he had got hold of my number from someone on the internet, he wanted a love spoon and was fairly abrupt and demanding in his message. I'm not a fan of love spoons, modern ones tend to be cut out of thin boards with a fretsaw and are never used as spoons. And the whole concept of paying someone to carve a lovespoon does not sit well with me. I was planning to call the man back but kept putting it off mainly because i didn't want to have to explain over the phone why i don't carve "lovespoons". Before i managed the return call i had recieved two more messages with increasing obstinancy, he came across as a man who is used to getting what he wants. This of course has stopped any desire to call him back. i have done some postal orders of spoons but only to people i know or have at least met before. i was selling spoons through a gallery in Bristol but i have now stopped as they don't buy them up front and i sell all the spoons i make anyway so why give them 20%. That said i do sell spoons to Douggie, i like him and he is willing to buy in bulk which makes it just about worth my while and though he makes very little from the spoons they do add to his stand at fayres.

Tips for Spooners

Recently i've done a few orders of spoons, which is something i rarely do as i normally just make what i like and then street sell them. i have spent a huge amount of time trying out different spoon designs but i am now keen to get more into production work. The wood i now reside in and will do for the winter at least has much over stood hazel coppice and i have started making spoons out of it, i have found it to be a very good wood for spoons and the one i currently use to eat is Hazel it's in a Wille Sundquist style (Swedish spoon guru). i have tried most native woods and consider hazel as good as any for spoons. Anyway for the production spoons i made some templates so as to speed up the process and the top tip is to use the 2 litre plastic milk bottles for templates, these are obviously readily available can be cut up with scissors and will live much longer than cardboard ones, the bonus is that like cardboard they flex, i saw up the hazel into 7 " blanks  about 5 mm oversize then axe a crank into it making sure to leave the top surface clean and all but finished i then put the template on the top and draw round the profile, cutting into the neck of the spoon accuratley is the biggest time saver when carving spoons, also getting the top surface perfect before moving onto knife is important. i shall post some photos of the templates and the spoons directly.

Bike

It would be wrong of me to pretend i haven't always slightly resented cyclists, the self righteous ones on the high tech machines with two wheels. You know the ones that don't stop at traffic lights, don't wear reflective clothing at night and cycle on the pavement whenever is convenient for them. But it wasn't until this last summer that my apparent dislike of cyclists really manifested itself. Ok so maybe i'm exaggerating a bit but i wish they would get over themselves, the bicycles have worn ankle braking tracks along vast sways of our canal tow paths, and i'm sick of being pushed off the path by fast moving cyclists. Of course legally as a walker it is my right of way but i am far too polite to stand my ground and tell them where to stick it. Whilst at Robin Wood 's workshop at the start of the Pennine way on several occasions cyclists would whizz past at such a rate that if they had hit an elderly walker or child they would have caused serious damage and none of them seemed to stop to close the gate behind them. And i know they are no evil like the combustion engine powered four! wheel versions that whizz about the country killing everyone and destroying our planet. But i think it's time to stop praising them so much, yeah they're good in cities where there is a cycle path, but it's a shame they ravage the countryside too. Having aired my views to Rob his eyebrows were raised a little but he carefully explained the benefits of the bicycle when it was first invented, freeing thousands of people to freely move at least three times as far as they had been able to previously by walking. The impact the bicycle had on those that could not afford horses/cars must have been massive, and i think this has changed my view on the whole and that maybe cycling is a very good thing. I imagine if the bicycles were made by hand with hand forged steel that had been smelted by hand they would not be so freely available.

King for The Day (article i wrote for Big Issue)

well sorry this is a lazy way of doing a blog!

I wake up and give the queen a massive kiss she has morning breath but thats okay cos I love her. I must admit it feels weird being king and Im not sure I agree with it entirely but thats all very complicated and Ill just go with it for now.

Yesterday before I was king I was a travelling spooner, hiking and hitching about the place sleeping in woods carving spoons and peddling them on the streets of Great Britain. I am lucky that I enjoy my lifestyle very much, being completely in love with wood and woodlands and almost too obsessed with spoons peddling is for definitely for me. I have all the kit I need to be comfortable in the woods. But when Im in towns and cities I notice a distinct lack of public toilets and if you can find one it has silly handwashing machines with no drinking water taps. As king I would create many more public toilets with a lot more readily available sources of drinking water, I guess tax payers have their own water and toilets at home. Id also like there to be more footpaths and less barbed wire.

One of the real blessings of peddling is that I get to meet many lovely people on my travels and I get to see old friends now and then, but I do miss Spoon Club. When I lived in a static caravan I used to have Spoon Club on Saturdays, it was open house and everyone knew that they could come round whenever and carve spoons. Wed all just sit around whittling wood whilst chatting and drinking tea and coffee. Those that could afford it would bring along some sausages and there was always plenty frying away for everyone. As King I would do a massive spoon club probably in one of my forests everyone could come and Id make sure there were plenty of tools for people to take home so they could carry on spoon clubs all over the place. Imagine if everyone had a spoon carved for them by someone that cared about them, I really like that idea.

Living Woods Magazine

This is an article i wrote for Living Woods Magazine it didn't make it, not entirely sure why.

The word Spoon has it’s origins in the old Norse word “sponn” which means chip or splinter of wood, so when we talk about wooden spoons we are really just talking about spoons. I make my living from carving spoons using hand tools to shape green wood pruned from trees. As a pedlar i travel around selling my wares; i also carve for bed and board. My makers mark is a lower case “b”- i like it because turned on it’s side it looks like a spoon. i have only just started signing my spoons I like putting my name to them and i like the fact that i am a person and not a machine.
I read somewhere that to rely on your local environment is to respect it and care for it, i think this is the same for people too, which would seem ironic if you view my life on the road as an attempt to escape this interdependency. It is not an escape, being self employed as a pedlar i feel a much closer relationship to the environment and the people i serve, than any job i’ve ever had. I have been employed in customer services for a multinational before and i didn’t feel like a cog - part of a big machine i felt like a bit of grit that had been added to the machine to slow it down and reduce what the customer could get for their money. Now i peddle spoons it feels like magic when i turn a bit of wood into a cup of coffee. There have been days when i have had no money at all and if i wanted a coffee or some food i carved a spoon and sold it.
Wood is my livelihood and is also where i live, i have a very close relationship to all parts of my business, i sleep and eat where i gather my raw materials, i am in charge of manufacturing and
marketing and sales. My shop is my little silk hanky and my cardboard sign, and if i am grumpy the spoons sell more slowly. I seem to be able to sell all the spoons i can make, but sometimes it can be difficult to persuade someone that the spoon i just took an hour to make is worth the £7 i am asking for it when they can buy one from tesco for 7op, there are days when you don’t want to hear “how much?!” but then i guess that is how i feel when i see poncy “artisans” valuing there crafts so highly, when often there has been little skill in their making. All these things are subjective but it’s hard to find reasons why i should earn any more an hour than anyone else working hard.
There are of course lots of reasons to buy a hand carved wooden spoon, i much prefer to eat with a wooden spoon, the feel of a wooden spoon in your hand and mouth and scraping the bottom of a bowl is infinitely more preferable to that of a metal one (better still if it’s a wooden bowl). To me the look of a wooden spoon is also much more attractive than a mass produced stainless steel one. When you buy a stainless steel mass produced metal spoon you are unlikely to know which country the spoon was made in let alone in which factory and by whom, and to take it further where did the steel come from? what conditions did those who work in the mine endure? When you buy a spoon from me you can know i enjoyed making it, how could you ever know whether those involved in making the metal spoon enjoyed their part in it?
This summer my main focus is on peddling spoons in towns and cities rather than just going from one festival to another preaching to the converted greenies, I will however, be at the Green man festival and the APF show.

nutmeg

i always carry nutmeg with me, it is widely known as the best of all the spices and for good reason. Nutmeg can be bought as whole nuts as in the first picture. The red stuff in the picture directly above is called mace it's the aril of the seed and is sold separately. You get a lot of flavour from that little nut and it will last you a lot time, i tend to just take micro shavings off the nut with one of my carving knives, i'll have to try get a photo of one i've used because when it's cut off rather than grated you get to see the beautiful grain it has. i add nutmeg to my museli which i normally have with hot water (carrying milk is a hassle  and it goes off), but it goes well with most meat dishes and a cheese sauce without it is just a waste of time. being a hard nut it travels well, i normally just have one in my pocket.

Bags

Plastic bags are pretty useful for carrying stuff, i keep my loose leaf tea and my museli in separate plastic bags. i'm not sure what natural options i have to be honest, i spose i could use some kind of skrink pot or birch bark container both of which are fun to make and look great on a shelf, but niether are anywhere near as practical as a plastic bag for putting in a back pack. Wrapping things in dock leaves works well for some things when available, and my friend Paul Wylde showed me these amazing leaves that are like cling film in as much as they kind of self adhere and make nice little packagesl, i'll have to ask him what they were called. i've heard Ray Mears uses leather pouches with ziplock plastic bags inside them (an expensive option). i've found ziplock bags made from sheet plastic split along their welded seams, which i guess is why Ray uses a leather pouch to protect it. I just double bag stuff and tie a quick release knot in the top half this provides a good water proof container for free. Like the drinks bottles plastic bags were originally made in separate parts, this created weaknesses where the handle joined the bag. Sten Gustaf Thulin's one piece design with integral handles (the type photographed above) creates a simple, strong bag with a high load carrying capacity. It is manufactured by folding, welding and die-cutting a flat tube of plastic.

here's the sheath as promised the photo was provided by Richard Dyson (apt), the Sheath was made by Rob Exon from veg tan leather, he soaked it and then using a clever jig held it in place on the blade which was rust protected with cling film. there's a hole in the handle for the string to go through, i just do it up with a slipped shoelace knot (one loop still in tact). i had it loose in my pack for six months and never worried it would come off and all my stuff would be lacerated. If you want a more secure shoe lace knot give this a go http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/secureknot.htm.

Value?

you can't travel very far without having a drink, and if there's no water where you're travelling you've got to carry it. supposedly an adult needs between 1.5 and 3 litres of water a day. i tend to drink a lot of tea or coffee which is not the most efficient method of hydration. The more food you eat the more water you need to drink, so i found my unhealthy diet a real burden in the weight of extra water i was carrying. i just carry 1.5 litre bottle of water, i'll fill it whenever i have an opportunity and i'll also drink water whenever i have the chance. i have sourced all my water from taps, though i know some people that would drink from a puddle even in a town. i say all my water from taps but actually sometimes when i knew i would be without running water for a couple or more days i would buy some water from supermarkets, value/own brand bottled water is very cheap usually around 14 pence that would get you a brand new 2 litre bottle of water everyday for a year for little more than £50. Compare to the water bottle i was recommended the MSR - Dromedary 2 litre £27. It can be hard to source water in towns and cities too, public toilets are a very rare thing these days but even when you do find them they have a weird hand washing machine that dispenses soap and hot water and then attempts to blow dry your hands. 2 litre plastic bottles, they're one piece blow moulded PET plastic with radial corrugations on the base for strength, and they have a resealable screw top, i like them.

i have had an amazing summer with a fantastic last couple of weeks at Robin Wood's place http://greenwood-carving.blogspot.com/  i am now settling for the winter which is very exciting, i will blog in the next few days to show you the little home i'm creating. i will also be posting on topics inspired by my experiences in the summer's travels which i hope will be much more interesting than typing my journal. i will also keep up to date on current projects.

bag of spoons, this is a quick way of displaying my spoons, there is my peddlars certificate also, the leather rolls up around the spoons and protects them from damage when they are being transported.

this all goes in the black waterproof bag that sits in the top of my pack along with my tools bag and bag of spoons. i keep my woolly hat in there so it's dry i have a headtorch which at night is always on my head and i'm in two minds about. i keep everything in this bag that doesn't fit elsewhere: a wallet, with my co-op account card, the waterproof match box with matches and a sewing kit, a little note book and usually a bic biro, a little bell, nail clippers and puncher repair kit (which i have a very funny story about). I started my journey with this folding saw but found it very tiresome and soon got rid of it in exchange for the irwin panel saw below.

large frosts knife with scandy grind, small laminated frosts knife with my special grind, Ben Orford spoon knives some other stuff, and sharpening kit including 240 - 1000 wet and dry, a wooden board with a radiused edge leather strop and honing compound. i will go into detail in other posts about the tools and techniques i use for spoon carving etc.

The plastic bag contains a change of clothes and is at the bottom of the pack, the saw slots into the frame and the axe and large spoon hook are loose inside the pack. i will talk much more about axes, but this is a gransfors wildlife hatchet, it's a truly beautiful axe and i feel sorry for anyone that doesn'y own one.

wash kit, this stuff was kept in the annoying pocket on top of the bag, the green bag actually contains a poncho, for the first half of my journey i was carting around a gortex jacket that never got used as i'd have to take the bergen off and root around in it first, inevitably the rain would pass or i'd expect it to or i'd just get so wet i thought i may as well not bother with it, so i dumped it in exchange for the poncho, the poncho is much smaller so was closer to hand, because it was cheap i didn't mind using it as a groundsheet or whatever. Plastic things get you just as wet from sweat if your working so i actually don't think waterproofs are really worth it for a british summer, but a couple of time this poncho saved me from a complete downpour, and if i'm sat on my pack it keeps us all dry, so maybe it's worth it. i normally just use soap and a nail brush for washing anyway, i don't shave so that saves on razor at least, bar of soap is not expensive lasts a long time and is easy to pack, the nail brush gets you and your kit really clean, i normally scrub my clothes with the soap and nail brush too. i pick at my teeth with a stick to keep them clean, and have recently been told by a dentist that they're in good shape, but i'm not convinced (and i don't have a girlfriend).

HATS

i'm bald so walking in the summer it was imperative to have a hat, i got the basball cap (which i love) free from a hostel in Canada, it's good because it keeps the sun out of your eyes too, i wear glasses but have no perscription sunnies and cannot cope with the organisation of keeping hold of two pairs of glasses anyway, the hat also shelters the glasses from the rain which is nice. The woolly hat was the only wooll hat i could find in a charity shop in bristol the night before i left (i think 26/04/10), i like it because it's warm! and because the ear flaps help it stay on in the night, which is good to ease my paranoia about earwigs (do they really go in peoples ears?)

SLEEPING

a very expensive bivvy bag, it's waterproof and has a zip 2/3 the way down it, it has a fly net and a hoop and all in all did me very well. i can't help resent how much i paid for it though, i did already have a gortex bag and that would have done me fine. There was one night when i woke up with my face covered in catapillars when i wished i had used the flynet but i never did use it. my friend Ben an experienced camper laughed at me for how much i spent on it and i decided not to invest in any other kit until i'd spent 6 months trying out what i already had. a few years ago i bought a thermarest but i got a rip in it and had a sleepless night, so i took just a regular (i think it's swedish army) foam mat with me. The sleeping bag was a softie 6 donated by Kean who is an inspiration (more about him another time), it was perfect for the summer but after the first couple of  frosts i have stayed inside. these three items were rolled as one into a large drysack this required very little efforty as it was not tightly packed and meant setting camp took seconds. i kept my spare pair of trousers in the drysack which i rolled up and inverted into the end of one leg to create a pillow.

Food

This all fitted in that grey drawstring bag in the photo which came with the bivvy bag i bought. i always carried some museli with me which i usually ate with hot water out of my metal mug with the spoon in this photo (the spoon was made by Dietrich the Journeyman), i found disposable plastic bags from supermarkets an incredibly useful resource and will be posting much more about my views on supermarkets. the brown stuff in the other plastic bag is loose leaf Earl Grey tea, i think Earl Grey is a beautiful infusion and no need for milk and sugar so very easy to prepare, the leaves settle to the bottom of the mug much quicker if the water is properly boiling. throwing tea bags away in the woods always feels awkward but discarding a few leaves seems just fine. being a coffee monster it was a hard decision not to take coffee with me but it takes up a lot more room than tea and is much more expensive, early in the year the urge for a coffee would drive me on to get to the next village/town, but by mid summer i decided to give up coffee in london as it costs so much in cafes. The last straw was watching people getting drunk on special brew for less than it cost me to perk myself up with a bit of coffee (i've got a feeling they're both a waste of money). The lighter was always to hand for making a quick brew, i prefer bic lighters but got this clipper from somewhere. salt and pepper were always worth having about particularly in scrambled egg, though the salt sachets start to go soggy quite quickly. the nutmeg is a hardy companion and always makes me smile even when i don't use it.

WATER

ok so there's nothing new here, if you know anything about camping/bushcraft then you'll have seen all this stuff before, but really i'm just setting the seen, so that when i talk a bit more in depth about my experiences you'll know where i'm coming from. This is the only permanent water bottle i've carried around with me, i had an MSR wobbly thing but it always leaked water and the sigg metal thing took up a lot of space and i'd always do it up too tight and you couldn't ever find a tap you could fill it from. i've got quite a lot i want to say about water but that will come in a later post. the metal cup worked fine for tea and cooking, but the metal rim caused quite a lot of wear/tear on my bag.

SHELTER

This is the tarp i use, i'll take a photo with it up at some point so you can see how i usually set camp, it's one of the aussie basha things and i've got para cord on it, i don't think that a bit of plastic sheeting with sheet bent bailer twine fixings would do any worse, but i already had one of these. i love the versatility of them, being able to light a fire under it and adjusting to the environment as it comes.

This is my backpack that i have carried around for the last 6 months. i am already missing the simplicity of having just one container of belongings. the bag is from an army surplus store i got it around 10 years ago went i went on a greyhound tour of oz. The size and weight have not been a problem whilst walking about, but i will try to reduce the weight and size next year. The 2 pockets on each side hold my water and food whilst the front one has my tarp. The main volume holds my sleep roll in one large drysack along with a bag of spoons, a bag containing my tools, and a waterproof bag with bits and pieces in.

article in the Observer

Nice article about me in the Observer Sunday 19 September 2010

A life less ordinary: Tobias Jones

We've had a great guy staying here for the past week: an itinerant spoon carver called Barn. He hitched here from London and rolled up looking just as I remembered him: wide braces over a woolly jumper, big beard and a big smile.
I met Barn more than a year ago in a wood in Herefordshire. He was the assistant to the green woodworking legend Mike Abbott and was teaching me, and a few others, how to make a chair. Since then he's got a so-called "peddler's licence" (for 17 quid from the West Mercia constabulary), a piece of paper that allows him to sit on any street corner and carve, and sell, his spoons.
What I like about Barn is his idealism: he doesn't sit on the streets because he's a drop-out, but because he's a true artisan who wants to share with ordinary people the beauty of his craft. He undercharges for his delicate spoons because he wants everyone to be able to buy one. Carving spoons, he says, is a way to "spread the love".
He wants, one day, to set up a sort of "spoon club" for schoolchildren so that they can learn knife skills and understand that knives can create real beauty, not just real menace. He talks about his idea of establishing a "pauper's caff" where hot, healthy food is served entirely on, or in, wood; where all the bowls, plates, spoons and chairs have been hewn by hand from trees. He's put his finger on what, I suppose, has always attracted me to wood as a material: it's so simple, so common and democratic. It's not exclusive, like silver or even ceramics. Anyone can find it and work it.
He stops with us for a week and is great company. We start each day sitting together in silence in the chapel, listening to the sounds of the geese and the wood pigeons. Barn is gentle but firm with the kids and is a huge help with all the work around the place. We spend a lot of the week just laughing. We all decide that he should come back and stay with us over the winter.
Each afternoon we sit and carve, creating a pile of shavings that the kitten and the kids distribute all over the place. My spoons are fat and lumpy compared to the smooth, slim models he creates with ease. When he puts a child's initials on a spoon, he does it by hand with a pick-knife, creating an immaculate bevel on the letters.
Barn's so used to sitting on the ground as he carves that we both sit on the floor while he teaches me more about sharpening and about various knife grips. It's obvious stuff if you think about it but I, like most people, have never thought about it.
Each night we offer Barn a bed in a spare room, but he pulls on his woolly hat and heads out under the stars. He's more at home in the woods. He's strung a tarp between a couple of hazels and sleeps happily out there each night.
His next project is to travel round Britain carving spoons in return for board and lodging and to write a book about it. It will be a sort of diary told through the people he meets and the spoons he makes for them. (If you're interested in a spoon or the book, we'll pass on your details to him.)
In the end Barn decides he has to get back on the road. I leave him at a nearby layby as he hitches towards Wales. When I look back and see the sign he's holding up, I notice that he's given the thick, marker- pen letters on the cardboard flamboyant serifs. That's Barn all over… unexpectedly stylish.

Article here 

Leamington Spa!

This is my first post and i have 7 min off free internet time to use at the library so it will be brief. I intend to settle once november comes round before then i'm off to the APF show and then hopefully meeting another spooner further north, at which point i will be going back to london and doing a week with the Tower hamlet cemetry park group. Once settled i will reply to all emails and start to arrange when i can come to carve you spoons, i will also write a condensed and hopefully less tedious version of my diary for this summer, at which point i will make more regular posts. I hope to running some spoon carving courses in somerset and also running spoon club...more about that to follow. Despite what they wrote in the big issue i am not the last spoon carver, their are plenty and i plan to write a bit about those that have inspired me.

spoon on people.