Small thing but it's been on my mind since I copped it this morning.

I can't cut the eye of anything until the ink is mixed and the paper's torn and there's nothing left to do but get on with it. The hare can be sitting there on the block, fully carved, ears, haunch, the whole rough business of it, and that one last unshaped lump of lino where the eye should be will be staring back at me.

It's not superstition. It's more that once the eye's in, the thing's alive and I have to be honest about whether it's any good. As long as it's a blank bit of lino I can still tell myself it'll come right. The eye is where I stop getting to be hopeful.

The wife says it's avoidance dressed up as craft. She's not wrong but she's not right either.

Any of ye do the same, save the one cut that finishes the piece until the very last minute? Or do ye go at the face first like sensible people and spare yourselves the standing about.