Today at the market

Today at the market it felt exciting again. I was listening to the noises and to the words exchanged. I loved the clocks and the way they marked time, and that at the center of the display was the skull clock, grinning. I have a whole collection of clocks and time pieces on my shelf at home, that I got from the old man's collection in London. You can wind them all up at the same time so they all tick crazily, out of time with each other.

But the thing that was most surprising was the tool man, who I always walk past quickly on my way to the woman who sells ornaments and kitchen things. As I walked past him I heard him explaining what a carved piece of wood-worm-eaten wood was. He was explaining that it had been used to sharpen scythes, that it was hung off the belt and then covered in mutton fat and sand so that when the edge dulled you simply run the blade over it and continue. Suddenly my attention was intensely focused on the piece of wood, its shape, and its surface that was punctured by a hole for the string. The tool man was aware of my attention and started to show me pieces he had hidden under the table. I became aware of the other tools, and their handles, the curved shapes, the rounded handles all shaped to fit hands doing very particular jobs, jobs we no longer do. The tool man felt it important to explain their uses, and the details of the tasks they accomplished. But for me they suddenly became extraordinarily elegant sculptures, ornaments for a bygone modernist era evoking a lost past of good honest craft. Maybe Henry Moore might have arrayed such things on his mantle-piece. The herb chopper was the most beautiful, I picked it up and stroked the worn handle where the screws were sanded down and smooothed into the wood. It cost twelve pounds, too much. I wasn't sure, but it kept calling me back to it. I went away, looked round the rest of the market, but I found myself returning and I bought it. A homage to Barbara Hepworth perhaps.