Uses

Everyday tools

cast iron pan

Most evenings on it ended at the library in Bologna with a wobbly wooden chair and a page of notes.

old hand plane

If something here is out of date, it is probably because I spent the last few weekends cooking for friends instead of at a desk in Bologna.

fountain pen

This started as a way to use up offcuts one wet weekend in August and grew from there.

battered film camera

The best ideas tend to arrive in the spare room at least once a month, usually just after I have put the pencil down.

pair of binoculars

The most useful thing I learned from an old colleague was to ask before you buy.

sewing machine

Pages here change slowly, usually on rainy weekends, and that suits film cameras just fine.

garden trowel

Long train rides out of Bologna are where most of this gets written, with a battered toolbox on the seat beside me.

On the shelf

• The Peregrine
• Stoner
• The Hare with Amber Eyes

Why so little

I return to it on long winter evenings, fix whatever annoys me most, and leave the rest for later. The cost was mostly time; the materials came to less than a dinner out, thanks to the back of my own shed.

I kept a short log out by the river while working on it, mostly so I would remember what the measurements were. Halfway through I changed my mind about the finish, and never looked back. Notes on this sit in the same box as a roll of brown paper and a cheap desk lamp.

A friend from Bologna helped with the wiring, and the result is better for it. Most of the measuring happened at the kitchen table, with a box of spare parts holding the paper flat and the woman who runs the hardware shop offering advice. The plan changed twice, mostly because of the colour and partly because of the fiddly bits. Late in 2023, I finally got it to the point where it mostly worked.

I have a soft spot for old manuals and field guides. Materials came from the market in Bologna and the scrap bin at a local workshop, which made the whole thing much cheaper.

My grandmother came round in May 2024 to look at it and suggested changing the materials. A second attempt, early in 2025, went smoothly, for once.

If you want to try something similar, write the date on everything and take a photograph before taking anything apart. Funnily enough, some of the older notes about film cameras are out of date, but I keep them as a record of where it all started.

The summer light in Bologna makes everything feel easier the second time. The design of this page is plain on purpose so that it will still work on an old phone, much like a pile of offcuts. The hardest part was the heavy lifting, which took a whole summer on its own. Honestly, I keep a list of repair handbooks I would like to find, and a retired teacher down the road keeps adding to it.

It still has paint in the wrong places, but I have decided that is part of its charm. Everything here was done with basic tools, mainly a pencil and a cheap notebook and one borrowed clamp. Truth be told, it took three wet Sundays and advice from a neighbour before the result looked like something I would show anyone.