When I unlock the little door into my workshop it's a different world - a place where I like to close the door and take out a pencil and look around for some scraps of paper and something to sit on, or perhaps just mess around with a job that has been deposited there, a small repair perhaps or the making of something requested for the house; or perhaps one might be in a tidying mood - a sufficiently meticulous one to sort the nails and screws, to separate the bits of moulding [sic] and boards.

It would be fatal to have a desk in this workshop. If one does write here you must be perched on a kerosene case with an old envelope here, or the back of a cardboard box, or a piece of brown paper to write on. Install a desk and inkpot and there would be no inspiration. If I go down to the workshop complete with pencil and notepad expressly to get some writing done I come back again an hour later with pad untouched and not even a nail box sorted because I've been so "good" trying to concentrate on the pad - it's very depressing. I'm not going to do it any more or the workshop will lose its spell.