When I was a child – so not that long ago – I used to love fresh bread, cut nice and thick on my mum’s bread board and slathered in great dollops of butter. I sense you salivating there. Steady now…

Anyway, that very same bread board was there when I was small, and still there when I was less small, and up until not long ago when I was even less less small, it was still there. But it was tired. VERY tired.

Mum wanted a new one but couldn’t find what she wanted; something similar to what she’d had for many (many) years. Odd really; just a wooden board with a slot in it for the knife.

At about the time I realised the board was on its last legs (do boards have legs?) I’d been given a stack of wood by someone in the village who had inherited it from a recently passed craftsman (the sort of chap who made guitars, rocking horses, and other fine things). A few pieces, I was told, were cherry, but I wasn’t (and still aren’t) so sure. I think it may be black or English walnut, but suffice to say it’s lovely. In fact, most of the pictures of spoons on this website have it in the background.

In a nutshell then, I made my mum a new bread board. I didn’t make the knife, but I did create a nice slit for it to slot into.

Finished with several applications of Danish oil it’s food safe and looks flippin’ gorgeous in my humble opinion. And, more importantly, Mum loves it.