Having come across it in an archaeological context (I have written on many occasions about my brief career as an archaeologist), I did not expect to find a mattock in a garden shed. To be fair, it is a rather smaller mattock than I’ve been used to, having only one blade and no ‘pickaxe’ bit on the other side, so that at first I took it for a hoe. But hoe it is not. It is, as I told Daniel in an effort to engage his enthusiasm, an earth-smasher, a clod-annihilator, a veritable soil-threshing machine. And it worked! He smashed away with vim and vigour and mattocked half the area marked out for him to plant his own stuff in.
For which relief, much thanks. And if you don’t get the reference, you must be younger than I am:
http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/relief-mafeking
Speaking of Daniel’s enthusiasm, he has been far from idle. In addition to learning classical and folk guitar, he is producing some stonking graphic art. Take a look at this speed-video of him working:
That’s it for today. Too hot to write much.
Kirk out
Sarada Gray 