Over the years the shirts and trousers have been replaced many times, yet they have always looked much the same: a long-sleeved T-shirt with a short-sleeved one over it, heavy work trousers and leather boots. If someone opened the wardrobe twenty years apart, they would probably think nothing had changed.

For someone who works with cement, adhesive and dust every day, I am surprisingly sensitive to dirt. I keep my work clothes clean. The marks that remain are not signs of neglect but traces that have outlived every attempt to remove them.

I have several sets of work clothes and none of them is perfect. There is a streak of paint here and there. The knees are beginning to wear thin, as they always do sooner or later. Like the scratches on a wooden workbench, they have become part of the object itself. Beneath the shirts stand the boots, brushed clean before being put away, waiting for tomorrow exactly as they finished today.

As a child I watched my granddad vanish indoors before doing some small job on his car or repairing something in the garden. A few minutes later he would return wearing clothes that belonged nowhere else in his life.

At the time I assumed he simply wanted to protect his good clothes. Only much later did I wonder whether he had been preparing something other than the fabric. The change was slight, almost invisible, but afterwards he moved differently. Once he had changed, there no longer seemed to be any question whether the work would be done.

I sometimes notice the same thing happening to myself. Before beginning, I check my pockets almost without thinking. The tape measure, knife and pencil go into the same pockets they have occupied for years. By the time I close the door behind me, I have already stopped thinking about everything else that might have occupied the day.

Someone entering the room might think the work has not yet begun. Yet everyone in the room knows that it has.

Perhaps many occupations begin this way. The cook ties an apron. The violinist tightens the bow. The gardener sharpens the shears before cutting the first branch. There is always a short interval between ordinary life and the work itself.

By evening, the shirts, the work trousers and the boots return to their place. Tomorrow they will be waiting exactly where they are tonight. Before the first tool is lifted, I will put them on again.