Bird-song coming through the open door, Radio 4 on quietly but perfectly audibly in the background, a beautiful piece of timber on the bench and a kit of first-rate tools to work it with: who could ask for more?

For me, there’s nothing quite like working wood the old-fashioned way - by hand.

I love the challenge of learning, honing, refining skills - and the feeling when a job comes together that it’s actually down in very large measure to my own skill and patience.

Then there’s the whole workshop atmosphere - hand-work generally doesn’t produce the volumes of all-pervasive and sometimes hazardous dust that often go with machining. Shavings and chippings are easily swept away - and the fine plane-shavings from many timbers have a beauty all their own especially when caught in a stream of sunlight.

With a good, well-tuned hand-plane you can take shavings less than 0.001” thick - thin enough to read print through - and when the sun shines through them they’re works of beauty in themselves.

Also, I know woodwork will never be completely noise-free, but for me the intermittent tap of mallet on chisel is a very different thing from the continuous whine of an electric router or a powered planer.

Don’t get me wrong: I use both of those, and a good number of other machines as well - they’re just not my preferred way of working.

Machines allow me quickly to turn a large rough-sawn plank into smaller pieces tailored to the project in hand with straight, square edges and surfaces smooth enough to work with - not smooth enough for a final finish, not by a long way, but workable.

I don’t enjoy this kind of work, but it gets me on to the enjoyable parts of the job. That’s what machines are for - to get the donkey work out of the way and set me up for some relaxing woodworking.