Not a metaphor, it's actual lino dust and ink and the same two feet in the same spot for eleven years. The floor is that cheap grey vinyl stuff and there's two pale patches about the size of my boots worn clean through the pattern, and a crack running off the right heel.

I noticed it properly last week because the small fella was in under the table looking for a toy and he came out with a lump of dried ink shaped like a kidney and asked me was it a fossil.

Anyway the actual thing on my mind: I'm laying a new floor in there in the spring and I genuinely don't know whether to keep the patches. Part of me wants to cut the two of them out and nail them to the wall over the bench, like a pair of old boots. The other part of me thinks that's the sort of thing a fella does right before he starts charging people to look at his studio.

The crack I'm not worried about, the crack can go.

What's the daftest thing ye have kept out of a workspace because throwing it out felt like a lie about how long you've been at it.