Yew and 24ct Gold Plated Rollerball Pen
YEW (Taxus baccata)
Yew is relatively slow-growing and can be very long-lived, reaching heights of 1–40 m, with trunk girth averaging 5 m. They have reddish bark, lanceolate, flat, dark-green leaves 1–4 cm long and 2–3 mm broad, arranged spirally on the stem, but with the leaf bases twisted to align the leaves in two flat rows either side of the stem.
Yew wood is reddish brown (with whiter sapwood), and is very springy. It was traditionally used to make bow, especially the longbow. The yew tree is a frequent symbol in the poetry of T S Eliot, especially his Four Quartets.
Pen #617 was turned on 8th August 2016 at Bugbrooke, near Northampton
It's a peaceful stretch of canal between Napton and Braunston and we stayed here for a good few days watching the passing boats and thunderstorms and catching up with making penstock for our next festival at Blisworth. We even managed to bump into fellow boater and blogger Maffi who very kindly gave me a log of cherry wood that he had started to season on his roof. It's not too often that I can get good quality English cherry wood so I will cut this log down into large pen blanks and finish seasoning them over winter to see what they turn out like next spring.
After a short evening cruise to Braunston we were very surprised to find a free mooring right opposite the Boathouse pub perfect for our stop off to meet up with local friend Richard and then later the same day Jenny and Chris all of whom brought some nice seasoned wood for me to add to my stockpile. We left again early the next morning, not so early that we would disturb people that managed to go to the pub the evening before, and then it was time to go up the Braunston locks, through the tunnel, down the Buckby locks and moor up a few miles further south in one of our favourite canal side villages Bugbrooke.
You can follow my pen making here on this blog and our travels on another blog here
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