Training to be a stonemason offers several lessons in disappointment. I’ve kept telling myself that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially at this early stage. There’s no way around it. Mistakes must be made – it’s part of the process. If it were easy, everyone would be chipping away at their perfect bit of stone and building lovely houses for themselves. A stone mason’s skill is a slow learn. But like all slow learns, the pay off will be all the sweeter for it. “Don’t you get bored just chipping away at one bit of stone?” my dad asked a few weeks ago. “No,” I replied. The confidence in the immediate aftermath of my answer seemed to reverberate back through me. I wonder whether dad caught a sense of that. It occurred to me in that instance that this is exactly what I wanted to do. I make it sound as if stone masonry has been some sort of divine calling. The thought didn’t strike me like some thunderbolt. I don’t want to...