What, still nothing?

Hey, where have you been?
Around.

What have you been doing?
Stuff. Working (the paid kind) quite a lot. Doing a good bit of wood stuff on the weekends tho'.

What sort of wood stuff?
Mainly experimenting with shapes that make good jewellery items and learning about finishes on wood - oils, sealers, waxes, elbow grease etc. There's only so much grease you can get out of one elbow, however! Oh, and I carved some nunchucks out of ash.

You gonna put a proper post together any time soon and share any of your new knowledge?
Yeah, alright, I'll get round to it. Hopefully the christmas break will allow me some time to finish some items and take some snaps.

So why are you posting at 4 in the morning? Got no life?
It's not 4 in the morning, I'm in California right now. Mostly business, a little pleasure. Haven't been over here for about 15 months so it's a welcome visit. Getting my fill of weird sh!t on [adult swim] and getting fed up with people who work in American shops asking me if they can help and proceeding to tell me about every offer they currently have. I'm surprised I have ever bought anything in the States, the continuous pestering has rather the opposite to the desired effect on me!

California, nice! That must be a pleasant change from the miserable British weather.
You'd think wouldn't you? Started off OK but got freezing and rainy today.

Oh, poor you.
Well, you did ask!

So what next?
Few more days in Cali, then head home to see my much missed wife. Got the whole Christmas and New Year period off work so will hopefully get some jewellery pieces finished ready for photographing, modeling and perhaps even selling...

I'm back

Hello!

Yep, been a while hasn't it?! Alas, I have returned to work and can no longer dedicate all my working hours to wood and garden stuff but, as I stupidly didn't take out one of those self-paying mortgages, the money is rather welcome.

The latest edition of Living Woods magazine arrived today and would you believe it... my frankenstein's monster of a shaving horse is featured on pages 18/19. I haven't had time to read the issue cover to cover just yet as I have been inundated with literally one email about my new found fame, but it looks great!

So what have I been up to since my last post? Driving to work, working and driving home from work mostly. But in the spare time I've been trying to work on some small pieces. I picked up a really beautiful piece of yew and have been trying to turn it into interesting little pieces of jewellery. Going quite well as it holds a shine amazingly! I also worked some freshly felled sweet chestnut. Man, what a pain that was. Stained my draw knife and scorp due to it's acidity and then promptly split terribly as it dried. Am I annoyed by this?? Not at all. It is yet another wood that I now have a little experience working and there is simply no substitute for experience. I picked up a few ash and oak logs recently which I am very excited about working. The old man is also going to provide me with some more yew and a bit of holly soon too. Who needs Christmas eh...?

The End of a Journey

Well, back to the real world in a few days. Both good and bad. Good that I get paid again. Bad that I'll have less time to nurture my new skills. Good that I'll, once again, have a short term purpose. Bad (and good) that I have identified an alternative purpose that is hard to penetrate. Whatever. We all have to pay our mortgages, that much is inevitable. We just have to enjoy ourselves as much as possible while doing it. And hopefully be able to plan for the future too. The best thing is that I have not one single regret. My brief time away from work has enabled me to learn skills that, had I been working full time, would have taken me two years of weekly evening classes to gather. Much more than that though. I got to:
- spend quality time with the important people in my life (Mo, Si, Tom, Mr & Mrs P senior, Stew and most of all Mrs P).
- develop all sort of recipes, most notably my hand made bread recipe. Best organic ingredients sourced from France and UK.
- make great new friends, mentors and future colleagues
- perform some vital renovations to my flat
- learn a s##t load about me

Some pics:

Some of my tools

Wood pieces (some unfinished!)

My bread

This is, however, just the beginning!

A new beginning...

Garden Design

Well this, my final free week, took me to the wonderful Hampton Court Palace to attend an intensive week of garden design training. KLC are a design (both interior and exterior) training company who operate out of premises in Chelsea Harbour and Hampton Court. Without any disrespect to any training course I have previously attended, I can honestly say that this week has been the single most educational and fulfilling week of my life. None of the pretensions of other superficially prestigious colleges, just a great teacher in Juliet Sargeant, excellently facilitated by Ruth Ellis, resulting in a friendly, happy learning environment. Yet another Plutus recommendation - unless you are going to be competing for business, of course, in which case I can assure you that there is no future in garden design so you best give up now! So, I've completed my first site survey, made my first master and planting plans, created my first mood board, designed my first garden (aside from the space behind my flat that I lovingly refer to as my garden, of course) and made a bunch of new friends. What more can one ask for? The answer... due to the fact that KLC operate out of Hampton Court Palace, it was necessary for all students to apply to the Historic Royal Palaces organisation for security clearance. This security clearance gave us completely free access to all areas of the palace. OK, we didn't have too much time to explore, but being able to pop into the tudor kitchens, royal chapel etc. on the way back from lunch made the experience that little bit better. Thanks to Maurice for the history lessons ;)

No pics this time, unfortunately, as my designs are valuable. I'll be sure to let you know the name and address of my design company, however...

Shaving Horse

So I picked up some logs from my tree surgeon's yard last week. I already had all the tools to get from whole logs to pieces of log (i.e. a log splitter, a sledge hammer and an axe) but getting from rough log sections to workable pieces requires a shaving horse. A shaving horse is simply a bench on which you sit and a cramp to hold wood still while you shape it with a drawknife and spokeshave. There are several websites giving plans and directions such as http://www.greenwoodworking.com/shorse.htm However, in Living Woods Magazine (http://britishwoodworking.com/Living%20Woods.html), Nick Gibbs published instructions to build Mike Abbott's new style horse. To keep costs down, the brief I had set myself was to use up as much of the old wood I had lying around rather than buying in a load of 4x2 as in the magazine. Using a combination of old fence posts from my veranda and random pieces of hard and softwood I threw together my horse in a few hours.
He is a little rickety so I have started refering to him as my shaving donkey, he doesn't have a name yet.

So what advice would I give to people who want to make their own shaving horse? Firstly, there is no substitute for thick wood. You simply can't get the strength when using thinner pieces. Secondly, don't under estimate the strength of your legs. I used a piece of 14mm dowel as my pivot and it snapped immediately. I'm currently using an old piece of copper pipe until I can come up with an alternative. Finally, don't expect it to be perfect first time. My top board, or head, is a little too high. My seat is 50cm from the ground - a comfortable sitting height - and my top board is a further 45 cm from the seat. This creates a slightly unnatural movement and should probably have been nearer 30 cm from the seat as one's arms are stronger nearer your waist than up by your shoulders.

Now to get working on some logs...

My first few pieces

Twice in one night, my you are lucky readers!

As my regular reader (thanks dear) will know, I've been doing rather a lot of woodworking recently. My two training courses, documented earlier on this blog, were very different and both taught me useful skills. I've invested in a couple of tools but not yet got around to building a shave horse or pole lathe. Shave horse first I think! I took an inventory of my shed earlier and I reckon I have enough spare wood to bolt together a crude horse. As long as it serves a purpose, doesn't matter how it looks IMHO.

But, the lack of horse hasn't stopped me from carving a few pieces. Robin (see Woodwork chapter one) was kind enough to give me a couple of pieces of cherry to play with which I subsequently did. I also picked up a couple of freshly felled logs from my tree surgeon's yard (cheers James). Alas, I am still not very good at distinguishing the different woods from their bark so am not certain of some of the wood I'm using. Learning though! If anyone can recommend a good book that will help me identify trees by their bark I'd be very grateful! Here are some of my first pieces from left to right - baby spoon (cherry), lettuce knife (cherry), measuring scoop with deliberately odd handle (unidentified wood), tasting spoon (poplar):

Different woods work very differently. Poplar, being a very fast growing tree is very light. It isn't the finest wood but has its benefits. Cherry is great to work and looks lovely when finished. I also tried messing about with an old, dry piece of London plane. Such hard wood it is almost impossible to carve. Got a great idea of what I want to do with it though. Watch this space...

Chelsea Physic Garden

Hello out there! Been a long time, again! Sorry, I've been distracted. Last week was taken up by a short course at the English Gardening School, hosted at the Chelsea Physic Garden under the tutelage of Rosemary Alexander, Laura de Beden and Simon Pyle. This was a great course and I learnt an awful lot from three great tutors. Far too much to disclose here but suffice to say that I now look at gardens very differently. In short, it isn't all about the plants. Sure, plants are some of the constituent parts of a garden but it isn't about buying plants you like and finding a "good enough" place for them. Oh no! It is all about the space. What is it for? What will you be doing out there? Once you've decided upon that, and a few other important things, such as budget, you can then start planning. Only when the plan is complete do you start thinking about the specific plants you want to place. Of course there's more to it than that but you get the idea. We spent one of our four days travelling to a couple of different gardens, including Rosemary's. Here is a pic of her Apricot Border, still looking rather resplendent despite the cold, miserable summer:

I had a great time and am already wishing I was back at the school expanding my knowledge even further...

Plutus has been away

Hello! No, I've not been lazy, I've been on holiday. Mrs P and I were in the south of France for a short while. Wonderful time had by all, well both! We got the Eurostar to Avignon, picked up a car, drove to St. Laurent du Verdon, drove round the Gorges du Verdon, drove up Mont Ventoux, drove to Orange, drove through Chateauneuf-du-Pape, drove back to Avignon, dumped the car and chilled a little after driving a little over 1000km in our surprisingly capable diesel Fiat in four days. Then got very stressed by the prospect of not being able to return home due to the fire in the tunnel. I shall not post my opinions of Eurostar/Eurotunnel nor any details of my personal experience until I am satisfied with the compensation I receive! Instead, here's a couple o' pics:

Atop Mt. Ventoux viewing our journey back down

Gorges de l'ardeche

Mrs P looking out of the Chateau in Chateauneuf

Of the four places we stayed I adored Le Moulin du Chateau in St. Laurent du Verdon and loved La Banasterie (and their dog) in Avignon. Le Moulin is run by a wonderful Swiss couple called Edith and Nicolas who operate a relaxed, beautifully decorated B&B that forces you to relax, eat well and enjoy yourself no matter how much you resist. La Banasterie is a slightly more busy place due to its location in an Avignon back street but is similarly tranquil. Typical provencal colour schemes and decor really make this place a wonderful find and Mouchi (sp?) the Shih-Tzu is an amazingly friendly little chap! If you are planning a holiday to Provence and fancy staying somewhere more elegant, charming and personal than a hotel check out:
http://www.moulin-du-chateau.com/
http://www.labanasterie.com/

Since I've been back, I've been baking bread with my newly acquired French ingredients, making lovely chicken stock from our roast chicken remains, perfecting some of my woodwork pieces as well as starting a couple of new ones, enjoying sleeping in my own bed and embarking upon some futher horticultural training at the Chelsea Physic Garden.

So much to post about, so little time...

More Wood Stuff

"What did you learn this week Plutus?" I hear you ask. Well, aside from the fact that it is possible for an entire British summer to pass with only one solitary nice day, I learnt a bit more about wood. Last week was manual turning, this week I harnessed the almighty power of electricity to make my life easier. And easier it was! I turned a chunk of laburnum into a corkscrew handle, a piece of yew into a bottle stop and a piece of mahogany into a bowl. These are all a much more refined finish that my green wood pieces. Last week, after the final pass with a skew chisel, the only finish needed was a burnish with a handful of wood shavings. This week's pieces were sanded with four grades of sand paper, buffed with webrax and finally polished with wax or oil. Much finer finish that makes even my non-symmetrical corkscrew handle look good! I gained experience with several new tools that suit electric lathe work. I had great fun, the only down side is that I am impatient and it can be slightly frustrating when starting out with a new technique and a new tool.

As is becoming customary, here's a pic (albeit quite a bad quality and poorly composed one):


Now for a little rest and some wine...

What makes a good teacher?

No, really, what makes a good teacher?

I don't necessarily mean a school teacher. In my opinion, anyone who imparts knowledge upon people on a regular basis is a teacher. Some teachers are professional educators, some are people trying to promote their wares, some are religious indoctrinators and some are simply people who love telling others about stuff they know and love. We've all had good and bad teachers in our time. Occasionally individuals connect with their tutor on some "higher level" but more often than not a good teacher is almost universally accepted to be a great imparter of knowledge. Why? Of course topical knowledge is critical but many subject matter experts make horrendous teachers. There has to be more than knowledge. I believe passion is vital, encouragement important and then there is the balance. The balance between giving someone the knowledge to find the answer to a question/challenge and stepping back just enough to allow the student to make, and learn from, their mistakes. I've had a couple of good pedagogues recently, some bad ones too. I've also delivered both excellent and substandard training in my time.

I'm taking several more training courses in the coming months so will probably have more to contribute on this subject but, in the mean time, I welcome your comments...

Tree Rats - update

OK, so the wily little ####s are squeezing behind my net construction into the greenhouse, locating the nicest looking tomato and making an artful exit. I bound the net to the greenhouse more firmly but they can still manage to squeeze through. My neighbours must think I'm a bit weird swearing at and threatening what appears to be an empty greenhouse. Next step filling a juicy tomato with rat poison a la "Danny, the champion of the world"? I probably don't have the heart. Probably...

Woodwork chapter one

My education continues. I went up to Essex recently to learn the basics of green woodworking and wood carving. My teacher was a great guy called Robin. He's been working with wood for quite a while in a variety of capacities and there is nothing better than learning from someone who is genuinely experienced! I spent two days with him in his wonderful workshop and learnt a hell of a lot. I started off learning how to split logs with a froe, chop them into a rough cylinder with an axe (a lovely Gransfors of which I am quite envious), shave them into a cleaner cylinder on a horse with a draw knife and spokeshave then turn them on a pole lathe. Man, I have to build one of those. A beautifully traditional method of turning wood - driven by a treadle connected to a pole (or bungee or anything else flexible) with a connecting line that is wrapped around the item to be turned. Here's me making my first turned item, a dibber, on the lathe:

Robin offered just the right balance of leaving me to make mistakes, from which I learnt a bucket load, correcting me and offering to put the finishing touches to my pieces in order to take them from just OK to perfect. I've done a lot of teaching/training in my days and recognise when I come across someone who genuinely enjoys imparting knowledge upon people. And he and Vanessa provide exactly my sort of lunch! If you are interested in learning how to use a pole lathe, how to work green wood, how to carve, how to sharpen tools or any other wood related skills, I'd highly recommend looking up Robin at www.treewright.co.uk

My pot scraper, rounders bat, dibber and spatula:


I've since started my own tool collection. Thus far I have inherited a couple of gouges and a skew chisel from my dad, picked up a cheap spokeshave and bought a couple of new carving knives from an excellent shop on Southampton Row in London called Buck and Ryan. They have a small concession in Selfridges but the main store is really where you want to go!

Next step is to build a shave horse and a pole lathe...

Plutus is injured

It was my friend's birthday recently. She decided we'd go karting. One of my favourite activities. I was quite looking forward to it. A little liquid on the track and my kart decided it could no longer be bothered to go round corners. Went straight on into a barrier. Hit my leg on the steering column among other injuries. It 'king hurts. Doctor told me that it is an impressive injury but I'll be fine. I tried to disagree but apparently a PhD in medicine outranks my GCSE in biology. Here's my leg just after the injury happened:

Actually looks worse now, one week later. I'm not posting any photos of it in its current state, makes me feel unwell...

Tree Rats

As you get to know me, you will learn that squirrels and I aren't exactly the best of friends. We had a disagreement about the ownership of a couple of sunflowers about 5 years ago and it has been steadily downhill ever since. Due to the ongoing feud, I deem it necessary to cage up most of my vegetable plants. I am currently growing some tomatoes (gardener's delight and peacevine if you're interested, red ones if you're not) in one of my cloche type mini greenhouses with a net construction firmly fastened to the front to prevent the tree rats from entering. I thought it was foolproof until I just went for a stroll and saw a half eaten tomato wedged between the outside of the back of the greenhouse and the fence. There are no visible signs of entry so I'm a little confused as to what's going on. Surely the squirrels wouldn't be so mean as to steal a tomato from elsewhere and wedge it behind my greenhouse, would they...?

Is it a table, is it a bench?

Mrs Plutus and I recently took delivery of our table, come bench. We were strolling around Hampton Court Flower Show earlier in the "summer" and came across The Bench Company's stand. We'd been intending to get a bench for half way down our garden (the sunny bit) for quite a while but hadn't yet got around to actually making the purchase. After a stroll around the rest of the flower show, an overpriced but delicious wild boar sausage and a couple of pints in the sun we decided to return to purchase a bench that turns into a table. By this time I think I was swept away with the notion that I would have a Transformer in my garden. OK, no robot in disguise I admit, but a pretty cool and functional piece of kit. Also important to note that the company called me well in advance of the delivery date, stuck exactly to the agreed delivery time (on a Sunday I should add), assembled the bench in the desired location and were thoroughly nice folk ensuring I was totally happy with my purchase before they left to make their next delivery. Here are a few pics of Mrs Plutus performing the transformation:


Even though it has only been around a few days it has already become one of my favourite places to be. Sure, I'm not officially working right now but I still have a lot of work to do. It is that little bit more satisfying being able to do said work in the sun on my new purchase while listening to the cricket in the background. Here is a pic of my new desk in action:

Love it...

Wisley Flower Show

Wisley Flower Show. I didn't know about it until I visited Wisley last week and saw them erecting the marquee tents. The Wisley information desk told me to expect a small version of the Hampton Court Flower Show that Mrs Plutus and I had attended earlier in the summer. Indeed the forewarning was accurate - this was a small but enjoyable show, centred around a large marquee that was 50% fuchsia exhibition and 50% streptocarpus, heuchera, gladioli, pelargonium and agapanthus. Mr and Mrs Plutus senior met me at the show and we all had a very educational time wandering through the gardens afterwards. Highlights of the stroll include (mostly for Mrs Plutus senior's benefit):

Lychnis - a perennial that was rather disappointing when it first arrived in my garden. A few little dianthus-style flowers each on a thin stem two feet from the ground. Didn't look like much at first but the proliferous production of magenta flowers has been simply wonderful. Regular dead-heading is a must!

Eupatorium - another perennial. The variety most common at Wisley looks like a large dogwood (cornus) with the beautiful dark red stem and is apparently an extremely useful plant that can treat malaria, gout, arthritis and many other conditions. I look forward to learning much more about this at the Chelsea Physic Garden in a few weeks!

Eryngium - Sea Holly. This is a beautifully structural plant that would look amazing in a border with acanthus and a prolific verbena at the back.



Lantana Camara - A particularly attractive flower that looks like a hybrid between a primula and a hydrangea in my opinion. Apparently it is quite invasive so please be careful planting it in your garden!

Canna - not really my thing but a couple of images for Mrs Plutus senior. Enjoy...

Stolen Vegetables

I've been put in temporary charge of my friends' allotment. Doesn't really involve much work when the weather is this bad. All I had to do yesterday was pick some beans and tomatoes so that they'd continue to fruit.


Really drums home the importance of sun though. I have an amazing garden but the southern boundary is lined with several huge trees which cast a shadow over most of the garden until early afternoon. Not even gonna think about the effect of the roots! I've managed to populate all the non-veg areas with relevant plants, most of which are doing very well, but vegetables are a different story. The difference between identical crops (same seeds sown at the same time in the same greenhouse with the same water) that have been planted in my garden and my friends' allotment is huge. Some things crop well in my garden (tomatoes, peppers, beans and peas especially) but some things don't crop well at all (notably root veg). However, EVERYTHING crops so much better at my friends' allotment. Maybe I should gather together an army and plan an invasion...

Shrub Pruning

The RHS gardens at Wisley run a variety of short courses as well as half day and full day training sessions. Members get a great discount and of course, free entry to the gardens any time they want. As an RHS member, I thought I'd pop along to the afternoon shrub pruning session on 13th August.

So what did I learn? Well, it is all common sense really. The golden rule is to look after your tools because, even with all the knowledge in the world, if you use blunt instruments you'll end up with poor results. You don't have to have a pair of Felco secateurs (although they do have a great range of tools to suit pretty much all requirements - and I'd love a pair if anyone feels the need to buy me an unexpected gift). After returning from the training, one of the first things I did was sit down with my old inherited secateurs, an allen key, a spanner, a screwdriver, a sharpening stone and my bike degreaser and lube. Taking them apart, sharpening the blade, cleaning the mechanism and reassembling them are all really easy steps. Look out for an entry on this topic coming soon.

On to the shrubs themselves. Bernard, my teacher, first took us through some of the most common English garden shrubs and how they behave. Buddleja, fuchsias, hydrangeas are found in most gardens and all flower off the growth formed in the same year. Therefore, you want to prune them pretty hard - cutting back most of the long stems (especially in the case of buddleja) so that they don't form ugly, long, old, woody growth. As is typical for most shrubs (and perennials for that matter) you want to regularly dead-head during the flowering season to encourage further flowering. Otherwise the dead flowers try to set seed, diverting energy away from producing more blooms. Pretty much all shrubs want to be pruned hard in early spring, i.e. late February or March. This hopefully gives the worst of the frosts time to pass before the new, young growth forms after pruning. Careful with winter flowering shrubs like forsythia. You really want to prune this straight after flowering. Leave pruning forsythia until late spring and you risk losing the next year's flowers.

Here are a few pieces of shrub-specific advice:

Buddleja davidii
Can be considered a weed I suppose. It grows everywhere, especially along the banks of the railway lines in south west London, but when in flower looks majestic and attracts so many useful insects to the garden, hence the name butterfly bush. I have always been more of a fan of the darker purple hues and so I have a Black Knight variety in my garden. This pic doesn't really illustrate what a lovely colour it is, apparently my camera simply can't handle its purple-ness!

I took a couple of cuttings earlier in the year, kept them in my open greenhouse and a couple of them even put out tiny little flowers. Donated a couple to my mum earlier today.

Hydrangea
Leave on flowers over winter to add a little frost protection. Personally I find the brown petals of the old flower heads rather unsightly but if they serve a purpose, then I guess I can live with it. When performing the early-spring pruning, you want to look for early bud growth and cut below that point. The theory here is that the early bud growth is a sign of how far the "spring energy" has risen up the stem. If you cut below the first bud growth you are forcing the shrub to put out new growth from where it has energy. Prune above the early bud growth and the shrub doesn't yet have the energy to start growing.

Philadelphus
Like other summer flowering shrubs, philadelphus flowers on growth it put out the previous year. As before, remove flowers when they start looking tired, but only if the shrub is small. I don't have a philadelphus in my garden but a couple of my neighbours do. The larger of the two would probably take a day to dead-head. Besides, I quite like the carpet of white when all the petals fall.

Wisteria
The old English country garden favourite. I have a small wisteria that I keep in a (large) pot. However, he has failed to flower reliably for the last couple of years. There are lots of theories on pruning wisteria, Bernard didn't claim to have the only method, he didn't even claim to have the best method, but he told me the method they use at Wisley and they get an abundance of amazing flowers every year.

We're assuming that the shrub is established and that you are not trying to train it into a new area. Throughout the growing season, probably worst from August onwards, the shrub will be sending out long runners looking for new places to climb. These can be taken off whenever necessary or unsightly by taking them back to 6 buds or shoots. As the leaves fall in winter, you will have a bare wisteria skeleton with each branch being six shoots long. Leave this over winter, then in February or March prune each spur by half, i.e. back to three shoots/buds.

And that's it. Of course, that isn't really IT, there is an awful lot more to successfully maintaining shrubs. If you haven't already done so, check out the RHS website as it has plenty of extremely useful advice.

All for now, see you soon...

Finding time

OK, OK, I know. I said I'd post every few days and it is now nearly a week and nothing new has arrived. I've got some free time coming up and will throw something interesting out soon...

1st - 10th August

Strange feeling saying goodbye to everyone at work even though you are going back. I've never said a permanent goodbye to anyone I've known for 8 years, except at a funeral of course, so this experience was odd. But there is too much to look forward to, I don't fancy getting caught up in any negative emotions.

First week of my three month journey was spent in Italy where two of my friends were getting married. The wife and I avoided honeymooning in Italy in August last year thinking it would be too hot. Good move! Last week it was between 30 and 35 degrees C most days and we were without air-conditioning for most of the week. However, the magnificence of the locations more than made up for the lack of sleep, continual sweating, heat stroke and general crabbiness. See what I mean...?

My Introduction

1st August 2008 was a big day in my life. I left my job of eight years, albeit only temporarily, to embark upon a three month journey of discovery...

From the ages of twenty one to thirty I have been working in the semiconductor electronics industry and while it can be a fascinating place at times, I need a change! Generally speaking, silicon valley companies treat their employees well. Not many employers allow their employees to take periods of unpaid leave for personal development purposes so I consider myself lucky to be able to take time away from my job to hurl myself into everything I find fun, interesting and enjoyable.

A little about me... I am an engineer by education and trade. I believe it to be a deficiency of the English schooling system that I had to decide upon my vocational career path at the age of fifteen. I studied Maths, Physics and Electronics A-Levels and then went on to study Electrical and Electronic Engineering at university. Not wanting to waste my education I chose to follow a career in the electronics industry. To this day I've had no regrets – my work has allowed me to travel the globe and taught me many extremely valuable skills. I've even been passionate about it at times. Recently, however, I have become tired of the politics, exhausted by poor management and disillusioned about following a career just for the sake of it. I'm embarking upon a journey of discovery, finding out what is out there, trying to understand what I want to do “when I grow up”.

I'm going to be taking a variety of training courses over the coming months – horticulture, garden design, woodworking, wood sculpture, wood turning and a bunch more. I'll be spending much belated time with my good friends and family as well as finding some time to make profitable renovations to my flat. I spend so much of my time cooking and, without wishing to sound too arrogant, most of the end products are way better than your average restaurant food. Hence I shall also be commencing the scripting of my recipe book. Haven't decided upon a theme yet, that'll probably come with time although working with whatever Kingston-upon-Thames market can supply me at a reasonable price may well dictate some of the contents.

Hopefully you want to stay with me during my journey. I intend to post at every available opportunity although several of my training courses mean I have to stay away so I can't make any guarantees.