Yes, wonderful, and cool hobby.
Your thread title had me chuckling 'latest obsession'.
I have to stop myself, from things like buying one of every instrument just to try, or David Winter vintage miniature houses.
I particularly like the seal lower left on first photo.
Proper retired I am these days. Become a daytime television watcher, well, quite selectively.
These two relaxing half hour programmes are currently on Rewind TV:
Old Country, presented by Jack Hargreaves, made in the mid 1980's, looking back on the life before WW2.
Horses, carriages, fishing, rabbiting, dogs, tools, farming, pottery, smithing; back to an age when life was slow, and everyone DIY'd.
Episodes also on youtube
Discovering Gardens, presented by Michele Brown and Giles Brandreth, made in the late 1980's.
Lovely English garden estates, with the owner-gardeners explaining and advising. An absolute gem.
Seems to only be on tv.
I'm binging on Sherlock (Cumberbatch & Freeman series) at the moment.
Got to series 4 of House (Hugh Laurie) and needed a break
Thanks for having a go Daniel.
I can never get the antiques roadshow stuff in order btw.
Correct that the bottom one or an icy waterfall is acrylic, the other two watercolour.
It is £800 or more, possibly over a grand now.
The oriental scene is painted on silk and is around 400.
The Thames Pool is by a known artist called Scarborough, and worth at least 1200, possibly double if cleaned.
@Steve-Miller
There are still a couple of launch builders here in England.
https://landamores.co.uk/project/slipper-launch/
Gotta love browsing our charity shops. Book's like new, and the other seven were near fine. Got to ten by selecting a Mozart and a mandolin CD.
Made my day, countering the 20p/litre jump in diesel price.
@BeeLady
Just googled your 'Valley of the Poets', and images; what a lovely area of the US it looks.
So I was browsing the charity shops of Durham City, and found that one is moving. Selling off stock, 10 books/cds for a pound, to eliminate moving costs. 10p a book!
This is the most lovely gardening book, though for the larger English garden, I guess it can be applied anywhere.
MrsA is our gardener, I prune the trees, hedge, lawn. This is an inspirational book however, beautifully painted plans to go with photos...
Prayers for you both
It took some years to find a knife block I liked; Jean Patrique Professional holds 16 and is deep enough for the longest.
But knives are personal tools, they need to be suited to a person's physique and the job. When MrsA occasionally gets the cheap heavy Chinese cleaver out, it's what she likes and the weight is what she needs.
Which ones stay in the block you ask?
We used to have two magnetic rails and a knife block. When the kids moved out they each took a set of knives. We moved, I gave a sister a Swiss set and I bought two new knife blocks for the remaining. One for the good, one for the bad & ugly;
Plastic, old wood, difficult to clean, and blunt quickly, they sit unloved and unused.
As does our steel Chinese cleaver which only comes out when bones are to be cut.
Such is the clutter we collect.
Small 7" serrated with a chunky handle, Waitrose however I think it's a Sabatier Pro made in France.
Serrated so cuts bread, turn it round and it butters. Cuts tomatoes, it's a paring and a utility chefs knife.
My cheese knife, yes, really. Zwilling unisex cleaver, obviously sold for other uses but the weight and another chunky handle make it a perfect easy cheesy slicer.
I gladly own up to being a Global fan with a few in the starting block(deba, chef). Their bread knife for the larger loaves works no better than others' versions, but is a quality design much imitated. Nowhere for food to get trapped between blade and handle (far Eastern bamboo handles are the worst) and the grip fashioned into the handle, its so easy to wash clean.
Today we awoke in a cloud, no rain but visibility about 50yards.
When we were house hunting 5 years ago we viewed a house remarkably similar to this, a pit managers house built around the same year, and the previous residence of Tony Blair PM. The large detached flat roofed garage was converted for his security team.
Certainly attractive for its spacious hallway & staircase, 4 lovely living rooms with period coal fireplaces, separate kitchen areas where the victorian staff would have been.
But it was showing its age, damp, roof maintenance needed, and then there was the fact Blair had lived in it.
Can anyone recommend a pocket whittling knife please. Folding type, small, robust, single blade is fine
I have only two planes.
A large Japanese benchplane that has to be assembled.
A Lie-Nielson No. 140b-r, a little block plane, low angled skew bladed, an absolute gem.
I've used some dreadful and average chisels over the years. Lidl specials, Flexi; and vintage japanese which are nice.
Without doubt the best chisels ever owned were this specific Irwin Marples set (10503421)
Marples do lots, but this set is outstanding, arrives sharp, does anything. Gave it away last year to a pro carpenter who borrowed & liked them so much, as a thank you.
The internet is severely divided on the use of honing rods. Chefs swear by them, sharpening nerds not so much. I have two - the classic fluted steel one and a ceramic one.
I keep the steel one in the kitchen and it seems to work as advertised. Haven’t tried the ceramic one yet.
Severely divided...
This made me chuckle. People become amazingly entrenched and argumentative over the tiniest of first world viewpoints.
A newly flint-knapped axe is probably the sharpest thing I've ever touched.
I'm a complete amateur, for me a quality 'steel' is a quick way of putting the edge back on. However, at £130 the ceramic global steel is a world apart from the old steel my wife inherited from her parents (old steels on quality knives are like using 40 grit sandpaper on your walnut china cabinet). Use your ceramic!
I have various grit stones, never used since getting three US made ceramic 2x8" benchstones by Spyderco.
I indulged in a sharpener by Kakuri, it takes the chunkiest of Japanese plane blades and wide chisels.
Very nice knives, and that prefilled block with 24 wooden handled looks superb.
Once sharp all you'll need is a honing steel to realign the edge. Searching their site, Warther make a wood handled diamond one for $62 that looks much like my all metal/diamond Global... highly recommended purchase.
Except unexpectedly its suddenly snowing huge snowflakes
