I've been carving this one hare since February. Not a new hare, the same hare, the one I keep coming back to like a dog to a gate. Every time I pull a proof the eye is the thing that ruins it. Too round and it looks like a sheep. Too small and the whole head goes dead, like there's nothing home behind it.

Anyway. Tuesday night, half eleven, kids in bed, Herself asleep, I'm in the shed with the radio on low and I take one more sliver off the corner of the pupil with a 1mm gouge. Barely anything. Could have been a bit of dust for all the size of it.

Pulled the proof and stood there looking at it for a good minute. There he was. Looking back at me. Fourteen proofs to get a hare to look at you.

I know that sounds like nothing. But it's the first time in about five months I've looked at my own work and not wanted to put it through the window. The rest of the block is still rough as a ditch, I'll be at it another fortnight, and I don't care.

Anyone else had one of those where it's a stupid small thing that flips the whole piece? Not the big dramatic breakthrough, just a gouge stroke the width of a hair.