1) You might remember my speaking of setting up a couple machine tools and the broader tidy-of-the-workshop exercise that the reconfigure spawned.

I uncovered this old toolbox, given me by my grandfather on my mother's side when I was a lad. It was in a box along with some other things such as my dad's RAC and AA badges, some dash-plaques from my motorsport campaigning days, a few stopwatches and a rally computer, that sort of stuff.

This box, an enamelled Pratt & Whitney engine badge from when he built P47s during the war, and his Elgin dress pocket-watch are the only physical "things" I have from this man. He was a quiet hardworking man who I credit for my mechanical sense. As much of a martyr as my mother made of herself in her tales of the Depression, the truth is, while they were never wealthy, they always had a home, hearth, and food on the table because of this man.





I never noticed until now this box bears an S-K Tools brand, so was able to research it a bit as they are a popular tool range for collectors today. It is the smaller of two utility-type toolboxes they offered, dating to just after the war. I initially used it as a fishing-tackle box and later kept modelling tools in it.

2) My wife has a circle of friends who share her hobby of card-making and other crafty things. The closest are two sisters who live in southern Virginia and northern North Carolina. They get together a couple times a year for a week at a time or so, and have a three-way video-call every Sunday to make things together and talk.

Anyway, this last Christmas one of them had the idea to buy the group each an amaryllis "kit" to grow indoors. The sisters' bulbs shot up and bloomed pretty much by the end of January, but my wife's was far slower and fell behind the pace considerably.

It finally opened on the last week of February and is running riot with blossoms.