There's eleven of them in the roll, all clean, all sharpened, and I use one. A 6mm U-gouge, handle wrapped in that cheap green tape because I split it years ago dropping it on the floor of a shed in Spiddal and I never bothered fixing it properly. The tape's gone shiny and black at the grip now. I know the exact feel of it the way you know a door in your own house.

The rest of them are good tools. The V-tool takes out the fine lines in the heron's neck better than anything, I know that. But the hand goes for the green one. Every single time.

Was proofing a hare block this morning, third one this month, and about halfway through I caught myself doing the whole thing with the same tool and then going back over it with the V-tool to tidy what I should've just cut properly in the first place. Twice the work. But the hare came out grand, so I don't know what to tell you.

Wondering if it's laziness or if the hand just knows what it trusts. Probably both. There's a woman up in Sligo does woodcuts and she's the same, has one chisel she's had since the nineties and the rest are ornaments.

Anyway. If you've a tool you can't put down, I'd like to hear it, mostly to feel less ridiculous.