One of my many bad attributes is
that I’m always hoping things will look after themselves. Whether it’s
housework or gardening, I have such unreasonable faith in the un-bounded
self-reliance of objects, I’m forever being surprised the hoovering hasn’t done
itself or the fence fetched a brush from the shed and painted itself over with a
new water-proof coat (complete with sunscreen).
The little table and matching
chairs that the garden centre man sold us as ‘pre-rusted’ has continued in its
inexorable drive to ‘post’ everything
and, early last year, one of our benches collapsed. No-one was sitting on it.
The back simply fell off all of a sudden. We heard it sigh and watched it keel
over.
Summer came and went. Did I paint
the other bench? No. (Though I bought new gravel for it to put its feet on.)
Did I pare the new rust from the rust
we were sold when we bought the table? No; I covered it with pots of plants -
ones I wanted to keep an eye on - so it turned into a sort of glorified staging.
That meant we couldn’t use it for meals outdoors . . . but . . .
There will come a time when my
garden furniture will die and I’ll hope for more. I’ll look sadly towards the
spot where it used to be and hope my husband notices. And if ever any more does
arrive, I’ll give it a good talking to before I put it in place and explain
how, round here, things simply have to look after themselves . . .
* * *
(This post is supported by
Argos)
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2 comments:
If only Esther...
All furniture have got a shelf life, and garden ones being expectedly shorter being exposed to the elements and all. The word 'quality' comes to mind but even with the seller/manufacturer emphasising it, you can't rely on how it will actually fare once continuously exposed to the elements.
But there's hope, just look at all those old, weathered, but sturdy garden furnitures you can find on older gardens :)
I have no idea why you call this a 'Bad Attribute'. Surely we're all like that... it's human nature. Think of yourself as 'Normal'.
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