Mallinson Ltd - woodwork courses in Dorset. Perfect short breaks for everyone.

The New Year has started well with the Bowl Carving course at the end of January now fully booked. Some of the Spring courses are also filling up very quickly so if you have been putting off booking, now is the time to act before the places have all been taken. We do have to limit course numbers - once they're full, they're full!

If you've received a Christmas gift certificate, just call or email the office to let us know on which date you would like to come down and join us in the woods.

Tools and Equipment Online

(Another world first?!)

I'm pleased to say that the new-look website is proving popular in general, and the new section offering tools and equipment for sale seems to be being particularly well received. If you haven't looked, then, in a nutshell, we're now offering for sale the same specialist tools and equipment items that we use on the courses.

As everyone who's already been on a course will already know, the hand tools that we use are very high quality. And if you've tried to buy them, you'll also know that they are not widely available - in the main they are only made in relatively small numbers by craftsmen for craftsmen, and we source them from across Europe.

(What's more, as part of this service, if necessary we sharpen the tools for you prior to delivery, so that you can get stuck in immediately on receipt.)

As well as the tools we buy in, we are also now selling hand-made equipment, also as used on the courses. At moment this range consists of the pole lathes, the shaving horses and the "bowl dogs" - used for bowl carving. We make these items to order in our own cabinet making workshop.

We're not 100% sure but having done a bit of 'Googling', we think that we may well be the only manufacturers of pole lathes for sale worldwide. (If this is the case, then it follows from our double-world-first claims of last October! See the 'Previous Newsletters' section of the web site for more details ... )

We know the "bowl dogs" (a specially designed bench for carving bowls) are certainly unique as we developed the design ourselves here, specifically to offer flexibility and portability.

(Incidentally, because all of the equipment is hand-made by us to order all the items can, therefore, be customised to some degree. Contact us if you have any specific requirements.)

Country Living

Another new page on the website is "In The News", with various newspaper and magazine articles being added as they come out. The latest addition is a piece by Hester Page for the January 2007 edition of Country Living Magazine. Hester came on one of the first Bowl Carving courses last summer and, along with seven others, made a large sycamore bowl. I am always intrigued to catch up with past guests and was amused to discover that Hester's bowl has never seen any fruit or salad, having been hijacked by her cat. This is surely the smartest cat basket in the country.

And I think that's just about it from me for now, before I hand over to Carolyn and Mace. Next month we'll be bringing you news of some new courses for later this year ... but more about that then.

Here's hoping for some nice frosty days before long. Thanks for reading.

Guy and the team

Tree Of The Month: The Willow

Willows are native British trees, variable in habitat and form but most often found in watery or low-lying places, where the roots will stabilise the soil on riverbanks. In Celtic mythology willow is associated with the moon; Culpepper stated in his Complete Herbal "the moon owns the willow". It is the tree of dreaming, intuition and deep emotions; traditionally, people would wear willow to signify that they had suffered a loss - as in the folk song "all round my hat I will wear the green willow". The incredible regenerative powers of the willow, with its ability to re-grow from a broken off branch, can be seen to symbolise the opportunity for personal growth that lies within the experience of suffering and loss. Those of you who use Bach Flower Remedies, where willow is given to encourage the rebirth of optimism and faith, may recognise these attributes.

Willows take many forms, from the mighty weeping willow, Salix babylonica, to the shrubby, diminutive S. viminalis, the osier. Identification can be fraught due to the promiscuous nature of willows, which has resulted in many hybrid types; one hybrid, S. alba 'Caerulea' is also known as the cricket-bat willow. These trees are farmed in controlled conditions, and harvested young; the timber is uniquely light and durable, and makes the finest cricket bats. Can't do anything about the team, though!

Osiers are the most hard-working of the willow species; once widely grown on wetlands across the country for commercial use, the industry is now concentrated nearby to us on the Somerset Levels. Withies are harvested for traditional basket-making uses, for the ubiquitous living willow structures, for new industrial uses such as sound barriers against traffic noise, and for biomass fuel - an exciting development in the search for renewable energy, where fast-growing willow is coppiced on a short rotation, to be chipped and burnt as a carbon-neutral fuel source.

Traditionally, willow bark has been used for its pain-relieving qualities for at least 2,000 years, possibly as a result of 'sympathetic magic' where the damp-loving willow would be seen as beneficial for chills and rheumatism caused by the damp. Whatever the reasoning, the remedy worked; chemists eventually isolated the active ingredient, salicylic acid, early in the nineteenth century. This led to the synthesis, in 1899 of Aspirin, still used - and useful today - especially after any festive season excess. Happy New Year!

Carolyn Brightwater

In The Woods This Month - Tree Planting

"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit." ~ Nelson Henderson

Despite 2006 having been the warmest year on record and a continuing unseasonably mild winter confusing both flora and fauna alike, midwinter is still the optimum time for planting trees.

Whether restocking an existing woodland, creating new woodland from scratch, or simply planting a specimen tree in a garden, the most sympathetic time to plant a tree is before the sap rises in the spring. All the energy recouped by the previous years photosynthesis is stored in the root system over the 'dormant' season, and accordingly the majority of root growth occurs in the winter.

The planting process is the major point in a tree's life that a person can make a beneficial contribution to its well-being, so do it right! The BTCV website is an excellent on-line resource for practical guidelines about tree planting and other conservation activities.

Mace Brightwater