TJ Finale: 30 Episodes Done, Time to Breathe

Back at the Lake

If you've been with Turner's Journey from the beginning of this season, you might remember how it all started. Back in June 2025, I introduced Season 2 sitting by a lake, saying that I do an awful lot of my best thinking when I come fishing. It felt right to end the season in the same place.

I've been here thirty-six hours, give or take, with almost no mobile signal, no emails to check, and nobody able to get hold of me. I haven't caught a thing, which probably says something about my fishing skills, but that was never really the point.

The truth is, I needed this. I haven't been fishing since September, and the months between then and now have been relentless. Teaching two, three, sometimes four days a week. Writing and launching A Maker's Mindset. Demonstrations at Yandles, Sandon, and everywhere in between. The RPT's AGM. Filming, editing, and uploading nearly every week. It all adds up, and eventually the tank runs dry if you don't stop to refill it.

So I've just sat here. Watched the sun come out. Let the quiet do its work. And it has been lovely.

I do have some early thoughts about Season 3. Ideas are starting to form, shapes rather than plans at this stage, but I haven't quite got the final vision in my head yet. That's partly why being out here helps. When you take away the noise and the schedule, the ideas have room to develop on their own. I've learned over the years that you can't force creative direction. You can prepare the ground for it, and then you have to trust that it'll come.

What I do know is that the summer has plenty in it already. There's a new book to write, Woodturning: Form and Formula 2, with a September target. Project videos to film and release. Students to teach, as always. Demonstrations to prepare for. The daily filming that came with this season won't carry over into the next one, that much I'm fairly certain about. But whether the episodes land fortnightly, monthly, or in some other rhythm, I genuinely don't know yet. If you've got thoughts on that, I'd love to hear them.

Thirty episodes. When I started this season, I wasn't entirely sure I'd get here. There were weeks when energy was low, when the cold wouldn't shift, when the filming felt like one more thing on an already full plate. But there were also weeks that reminded me exactly why I do this. Students discovering something new at the lathe. Demonstrations where the room was alive with curiosity. Quiet mornings in the workshop where a piece came together in a way I hadn't expected. Those are the moments that make everything else worthwhile.

Thank you for watching. For commenting, for sharing, for buying the books and booking the classes and just being part of this thing that's grown into something I couldn't have imagined a year ago. I hope you've found the series interesting, perhaps even a little bit inspirational. But more than anything, I hope you've enjoyed it.

I'll be back. There are project videos coming over the next few months, and Season 3 will take shape in its own time. But for now, I'm going to sit here a while longer, watch the water, and let the stillness do what it does best.

See you on the other side.