A Spring in my Step
A spring in my step is the best way to describe how I’m feeling today but before I say why I need to give a little background to the story. One day totally out of the blue someone I hardly knew turned up. He is a mechanic by trade but was helping clear a totally neglected field of overgrown gorse bushes. The back of his pick-up was full of gorse – the biggest I’ve ever seen. I have plenty of what I consider to be overgrown gorse in the hedge in my field. The largest stems are a bit over an inch, maybe 30mm. These ones were up to 4 inches (100mm). Jeff had noticed while he was clearing them that the end grain had an interesting and unusual diamond or lozenge pattern. He had seen and liked my work and wondered if I’d be interested in the gorse. I was delighted.
I love something a bit unusual to work with. I know I could go out and buy something beautiful from anywhere in the world but that doesn’t appeal to me at all. It is having something a little different from here that is so exciting. (I have decided it is similar to seeing exotic animals in a zoo compared to seeing a badger, fox etc. in the wild. There is no comparison in my opinion. The briefest glimpse of real wildlife is great and if it is something beautiful or if one can watch undetected for a while I feel totally blessed.)
And so it is with this gorse. I’ve got a real spring in my step after turning it. I’m looking forward to the next bowl and feel I could work for ever. When he first brought the gorse I turned several trunks/branches. Its interest was mainly because it was an unusual wood and the shape lent itself well to natural edge turnings. However the colours were not very exciting being a bit pale on the whole, apart from a couple of pinkish patches. This lot I had left this to season and it had become a bit ‘spalted’ which is caused by fungus getting into it. This is what is created the darker patches and it has created beautiful patterns and shown up the unique markings that gorse has which is what Jeff noticed. It looks rather like snakeskin in this photo, I think (or is that my imagination?).