To market, to market

Dig says I will never find a set of Christmas present woodcarving tools unless I buy them online, and it is too late for that. He thinks he is triumphant. I can imagine him already, polishing his crown that says 'I was right'.

I am all out to prove him wrong. So much so, I would probably sell both my arms to do that right now.

It is lucky then, that today is the final car boot sale just before Christmas. It's a ten minute drive; sprawling, busy, filled with strange and lustrous objects like a medieval trader's market outside Samarkand. Last time I visited, I happily trawled through piles and piles of wares; junk from garages, attics, heaps and mounds of discarded remnants. Treasure, all.

Surely, I think, someone will be turning over grandfather's woodcarving tools, forgetting, or not caring, how his gnarled hands held those handles, and thinking, 'good for a fiver, the lot'.

On the busy front, I could kick myself.


Only on arriving do I recall that the last time I visited here, it was a warm summer day, buzzing with ice cream sellers and sticky drippy ice cream. All the people from miles around probably opened up their doors into every room, threw out the old, let the light pour in, then came to renew those rooms again with wanted treasure. I did. I bought a deep glass bowl. I like to think it crystal, and that the stallholder was a fool to let it go for a mere three pounds. The first day I brought that holy grail home, I filled it overflowing with strawberries, fresh picked from the farm. Now it is positioned to catch the drips from under the ailing boiler.

So, not busy. I blame the freezing temperatures, permafrost ground, warmer options down the shopping mall, and the fact that a load of old junk covered in snow doesn't have quite the pulling power of a load of old junk covered in summertime. At least in summer you are tempted to linger, be seduced by objects slowly turning in your fingers, fall in love with scars and knocks and dents, and see history trapped in chipped china. In winter I want only to hurry past with my hands buried in my pockets.

But then I pass a hooded figure out the back of a white van selling tools, and lo and behold, as if a star just guided me, here is a set of woodcarving tools, new, wrapped in plastic, held tight in a wooden box.

I peer over them, looking to see if they might do the trick. 'Alright love?' the hooded figure calls, suddenly springing up and cheerful, as if I might be the only customer to brave the morning. 'Those are excellent tools! First class! £15 the set!' He speaks brightly, like next he might suggest they carve anything, solve health problems, cure rheumatism. 'It doesn't have a small v or a small u' I answer. I didn't know I knew those words, but out they popped, and it suddenly sounds like I know what I'm talking about. 'Tenner, then' he grins. He thinks I know what I'm doing. I don't.

But now we are up by a set of woodcarving tools, with four days still to go to their Christmas unveiling. I can return home to Dig, made of ice, but gloating, carrying the burning fire of righteousness tucked under my arm, swaddled in a battered Asda carrier bag.

Ancient craft

I drive the kids to their woodcarving lesson with Jeremy, a woodcarver who has pale hands the colour of ash, and a wise, gentle way with children that makes him a thousand years old.

After five minutes working alongside him in the cold, cold woodshed, Shark, Tiger and Squirrel declare the temperature is fine, so there must be something wrong with me.

I tell them, You are working up a sweat, swinging mallets, pounding pine. Your cheeks deserve to be pink flushed. With no wood weapon to wield, I have nothing to do to keep me warm. I stamp up and down on the same square of concrete floor. I might stay alive yet with this technique. But if for one second I stand still then I might become as solid as a beam. Then you woodworkers would have to use your gouges and files to lever me off the concrete and crack me down to a shape that could drive you back home to fireside warmth where I could thaw out.

They ignore me. They have purposes to meet, tools to control, and wood to shape into sheep, peanut bowls, and killer whales.




I slip outside where it is slightly warmer than the still cold air of the workshop. Outside I can walk about and once more feel my toes and catch the moment the sun slips away and daylight slides into dusk. This tipping time of an iced winter day in England, I hate it, and I love it. Darkening minutes like this tell me I am here, rooted in this country. We are thinking of leaving, finding somewhere else to live for a few short months. I would miss this view if we flew away.

I am surrounded by gentle curving land, a calm river, frozen fields, woodpiles. I watch my breath freeze into lumps. Should it stay for a moment longer, I could ask Shark to take a gouge to this too, and fashion an ancient air-borne creature.

On the hill is the manor house, newly built in the seventeenth century, but formed before by William the Conqueror, parcelling up the land and dividing out England amongst new masters.

Close by, the church, worked up in stone by men in 1200 or thereabouts, since built, rebuilt, still used. If we moved, even for a short time, to be away from England and its cold toes, runny noses, damp drizzle, I would remember this afternoon. I would think Brrr, glad to be gone. And I would long for it back again.

Here's one mother who couldn't care less

You see? This is the cavalier approach I take to safeguarding my children.

Here's Squirrel, handling DANGEROUS TOOLS.


And this took place in a totally NON-REGISTERED environment.

Now guess what? We filled in no forms for any type of RISK ASSESSMENT.

That's how little I care.

Better still, this dangerous and alarming environment is the workshop of a local woodcarver and he works with SHARP CARVING TOOLS. At any moment, any one of those tools could KILL YOU or GOUGE OUT YOUR EYE.

You would think that was bad enough, wouldn't you? But this shows how far Grit has gone, because she cannot give a gnat's piss whether the oldcurledupwoodcarver - who is probably made of oak himself - she could not care less whether he has been entered on the VETTING AND BARRING DATABASE.

And WORSE. He is not even a registered and licenced teacher! NO! GET THAT! He is a WOODCARVER. TEACHING WOODCARVING.

I can hear the OFSTED inspectors tut tutting now.

Grit should have done this lesson on woodcarving PROPERLY. According to the government. Like, NOT AT ALL. Who approved this type of thing in the National Curriculum? Really, she should have BANNED the activity altogether.

But you know she's bloody-minded. The very least she should have done was hire a biology teacher with fuck all experience and interest to cover the lesson in a proper CCTV controlled classroom while Squirrel and 30 other kids watched a video about woodcarving and answered the questions on whether wood comes from a tree or a motorway.

Then, just as you thought it was as bad as it could be! Not only do I encourage my kids to enter dangerous environments, wield banned tools, and interact with people who are not rubberstampedgovernmentapproved, MICHELLE IS HERE TAKING PHOTOS.



And you know what that means.

NEITHER OF US may be CRB CHECKED.

And what is Grit's attitude?

Pah! Kiss my arse! IGNORE THE LAW.

With that sort of attitude, you'd almost expect the government to try and close all home education down.

Some days, all things are possible

Thinking that today would be incomplete without shoving a mallet into Shark's hands, a chisel in Tiger's and a saw into Squirrel's, I drive everyone to the back of a village beyond to meet Jeremy Turner, woodcarver.

Jeremy supplies a two hour workshop for Shark, Tiger and Squirrel, and teaches them knowledge that ancient men of the woods might know. Like how to shape and texture wood; how to cut across, round and down; how to feel the grain and see the rough lines marking dry winters and wet summers ; how to smell a curled leaf of wood and tell if it's cedar or lime; and where best to go for tools and how to pollard trees. OK, not that last one, but give it a few sessions and, armed with a little knowledge, all will seem possible.

Anyway, here is Squirrel in the wood workshop, waiting to get her hands on a mallet, preparatory drawing at the ready.


And here is Shark, on the receiving end of some woodcarving advice. And if I were Jeremy, I wouldn't put my fingers there, but I did see he had a packet of band aid ready.


Finally, Tiger, chiseling away. She is possibly in disguise.


Now regarding the gritlets abilities in new pursuits, I aim my ambitions low. That way, I won't be disappointed. Sometimes I aim so low, that simply arriving at a workshop anywhere would be a success. Today, I have thought that holding a mallet and crashing around a studio before being sent home in disgrace, weeping, clutching some splintered wood with bandages on our fingers, would be the pinnacle of our triumph. But I am simply awed at the expert skill with which the little grits are not only led through carving techniques, but then go on, with confidence, to produce the following:




Now if you look at Jeremy's work, you'll see that he paints the finished result, and Squirrel likewise has made a start. But no-one wants to paint further. They like to see the wood. For the moment, so do I.

But you can bet I've been pricing up those tools, and eyeing up those trees.