What is a raven like?

The other weekend I was down in the Downs for the Small Wonder festival, and since I was down in the Downs with David in tow we naturally went to visit his mother. And since we were all there it seemed like a good idea to wander around one of the lovely little villages they have at that end of the world and generally poke our noses into things. Which is when I saw this monster:

I had to put my back against the far wall to get the whole thing in frame.

We spent most of the summer working on patching holes in the walls of the junk room so that it could be turned into an office, and it just happened that immediately prior to this trip we'd finally painted, laid a new floor, and had been debating what to do about a worktop. The practical side of me had been reconciled to the idea of Dave building something cheap and wipe clean; the other side desperately wanted something unwieldy and old. So when I saw it in one of the secondhand shops in Lewes, I may have squealed a little. Because, let's face it, no one ever passed down her wipe-clean worktop to her daughter. Wipe-clean worktops just lack something. 

The only problem is my arms aren't quite long enough to reach all those little drawers when I'm sitting down. 

So now I have a desk of more-than-ordinary-spleandour, to paraphrase Kipling, and it happens to be in an office that is finished enough to use, and when I'm done working I can close it up and lock it so that no one can accidentally tidy my outlines into the bin.

And yes, that is a model of Assateague light house on the top.