This is quite the most lovely thing I’ve seen in a long time. It’s my ‘mother-in-law’s’ (well, mother-in-law by any other name) sewing machine, handed down to her by her Mum. I have one very similar, though not quite as ornate. I was looking for inspiration tonight and she came up with this – I couldn’t have chosen better myself.

As those who read my stuff will already know, I have something of a passion for sewing and I consider myself to be a reasonably good seamstress. As with everything, your job as a seamstress is made easier by having the best equipment for the job. In the case of sewing machines, that doesn’t mean programmable what-nots, it means good engineering. These old machines knock today’s ones into a hat – they have superb, clean, free actions that modern machines just don’t have good enough engineering to keep up with.

This shot has been taken with a table lamp pointed at the polished face plate and a fast lens, hand held. For me, the fact that there is no context really works for this pic – it doesn’t need any clutter to interfere with its undoubted beauty, it can show off in this light.

I love this thing.

Sometimes, you see something that takes your breath away and this has done it for me today.

My climb up the ‘pops’ continues – Mum, if you can find your way into the pops, I’m at no 4 today!!!!! I am thrilled at that and now only have three more to find – I am now confident of getting there. That silly little gallery has had phenomenal interest from people who wouldn’t otherwise have found their way to a PaD person’s pics. Not that I am 'allowed' to be called a PaD person as I don't meet the most basic criteria of being a true PaD person - having failed to stop after a year……some people will go to any lengths to claim to be an innovator. Ah well, if people want to claim 'I was the very first person to start doing PaD, in fact I invented it because no one else had thought of doing it on a day when it rained and there was a 't' in the day title and no-one else was wearing a red shirt at the time' then let them - WE all know the truth don't we?

I was still heading towards disaster last year, but still didn't know it.