The gentleman builder

Weighing up the wonderful and not so wonderful memories.

It will have been well over a year since I downed tools, forsook the Old Milking Parlour down by the shores of Loch Broom, and vowed never to take up a ball-peen hammer in anger ever again, at least for money. Those who believe I should be pining for the smell of oak dust and the whine of the bandsaw can think again. These days, and it is in the midst of a bitter winter I write, the idea of heading down to the yard, turning the key in the old double doors and, in a cloud of steaming breath, set about fitting another plank to another clinker boat, fills me with dread as I stoke the embers in the wood burner and catch the news on the BBC.