As regular readers to this blog will know since January last year I’ve been attending wood school on a Thursday night.The class runs from 7pm till 9pm and everyone has their own projects to be getting on with and works pretty seperately unless one of the tutors has something to show us or its break/parish notice time. Brian (seen above with the silly glasses on) is one of the tutors and my favourite, mostly because he is so patient and has never been discouraging about my quite ambitious project plans
We were all rather worried earlier this year when he suffered a minor stroke and was out of action for a few weeks. Wood school wasn’t really the same but thankfully a few months later he is back to his fabulous self. We all trooped along to a local pub (in the rain) and enjoyed some fine eating and some local carol singers. As a bonus I also got a Christmas card from Brian, I’ve been carving this William De Morgan design (he designed tiles for William Morris) in three layers in a rather large piece of wood since I started. I first saw the design when I was 12 at the Walthamstow William Morris museum & it must have made a big impression as now many years later I still remebered it. 
Brian has the rule that you can carve whatever you like, but it has to be something that you love, as that way you are more likely to finish it. He told me I was taking on a lot when I first started his namesake (Brian the lion) it is a big job but with three seperate layers (all of which will be rounded to be convex once I’ve finished) to the relief carving it was never going to be a walk in the park. He pushed this point home in his Christmas card, it read ‘sorry that you haven’t finished your first carving yet, maybe next year or the year after, or the year after that…’. I will get there, I have to I’ve already put my nae down for a large chunk of cherry wood which will be ready in a couple of years time!
