Like the blog that inspired it this book is essential reading for anyone considering setting up to become a shedworker; if you are already a shedworker you’ll want it on the shelf too. It contains a history of shedworking and famous shedworkers, from Pliny, to Gustav Mahler and Roald Dahl, musician Peter Gabriel, human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, and journalist Andrew Marr. There are many, many marvellous pictures of sheds and garden offices, shedworkers’ stories (a lovely surprise was finding my own shed on page 56), advice on building your own, what you might do there, on green shedworking and possibilities beyond the shed: canal boats, railway carriages, airstream caravans and treehouses. What comes across most of all is the happiness shedworking brings to the lives of those who have arranged to be able to do it.

A preview of the first chapter is here. More on sheds and shedworking on Alex’s Shedworking blog, and at Uncle Wilco’s Readersheds where you can vote for Shed of the Year 2010 and follow the build up to National Shed Week 2010, which begins on July 5th.

In the mean time, why not buy Shedworking: The Alternative Workplace Revolution

The Long Arctic Night

Barents set out on May 6, 1596, from Amsterdam, only for his ship to become trapped in the ice, forcing the crew to overwinter in a tiny wooden hut they built on Nova Zembla:

Meanwhile we had made good progress with the building of our hut, and the four walls were almost completed, so that everyone could see there were to be three doors, one facing east, one south, and one west. The north wall, however, was entirely solid, as the rawest and coldest winds generally blow from that direction; and Piet, well aware of that, had, with foresight, provided for it in his construction plan. … On the following day we added the slanting roof, which sloped at an oblique angle from north to south, and covered it thickly with mud paste, which froze as usual the instant it was applied.

The men encounter bears, live on seal meat and develop scurvy. When the ice finally melts the following Spring they find the ship has been crushed, forcing them to sail back to the mainland in two small boats.

Amazingly the hut itself was rediscovered almost 300 years later, in 1871; many artefacts were recovered and are kept at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The photograph shows how it looked in 1881, but the site is now marked by a memorial and is visited by arctic cruise ships. In recent years, as global warming melts the ice, the Northeast Passage has become passable to shipping, shaving around 3000 miles from the journey between the Netherlands and South Korea.

It has taken two years to find the time and inclination to do it–it was nearly scuppered by a neck injury which has been bugging me for the past year or so–but I thought I’d share a few pictures of the build. Some of these were taken by the incumbent herself, a regular little Thoreau who says she likes having a place to think. Grown-ups are allowed inside on high days and holidays, but only if they leave their shoes on the mat.

Most of the wood is new, from a local merchant, Newlands, but quite a bit of it is reclaimed from scraps that have been lying around for a while. This caused a few problems as wet wood decided to uncurl in situ and it means the ply for the roof is not as tidy as it could be; I didn’t want to buy an entire sheet of ply just to cover a small space. Part of the plan was to build something that would serve as a store for garden furniture during the winter and outlast its life as a playhouse, so while the roof is low the door is disproportionately wide to allow large items to be kept inside. I’m pleased with the result. The problem now though is that we have run out of garden, so if in a year or two my thoughts turn once again to shed building, we’ll have to move house.

Update 20/05/10: Move to WordPress.com meant the slideshow stopped working. Replaced with a gallery.

I spent part of last week in Oslo and discovered that Norway is arguably the shed capital of the world. I’ve posted two sets of photographs on my photoblog, Ingrahap, of waterside huts from around Oslo Fjord here and here. Shed week starts on July 6th this year. Go and vote for your shed of the year, right here. I’m backing Bletchley Park hut 6.

Elsewhere, the aforementioned garden features in a lovely, funny, touching piece on the Brocante Home blog: The Lady Who Thought She Was a Car.