About six years ago – in 2015 I think – we gave our garden chairs away to the fledgling Forest Gate Community Garden. The purpose of this donation was two-fold. The chairs were of the green plastic variety and not our dream chairs. By giving them away we were making space for new ones. At the same time we were helping to create seating options in this wonderful new community space that I was involved with.
Somehow, six years has passed without allowing ourselves the pleasure of replacement garden chairs. We’ve either been too skint or too busy or got into the habit of carting our dining room chairs out in and out of the garden and just thought, that’ll do.
We supplemented with an old picnic table that we had at the front for a while – a seat that I thought I would use when the kids were babies but hardly ever did so it was brought into the back for the kids to craft on. We made do with our small blue camping table during the first lockdown of 2020. I used it to homeschool the kids on when it was too sunny to be inside, as a kids eating table and to grow my survival mode seeds on. The blue and the camping element also brought some much needed brightness and comfort into the proceedings. Everything would be okay. We’re just camping out. Plus we also had two cedar wood benches made by Tom that had been used indoors and out as shoe rests, seats, plant stands and now reside in the Peace Corner next to an old sledge. The random acts of gardening.
We held onto the picnic table and an old oak dining table until they started to moss up, chip and rot, possibly because I was now using all available space as a planting area. I also took over an old green wrought iron table with my never-ending line up of cosmos, fennel and borage. It sounds like we actually had or have loads of seating options but all were ever temporary, fleeting or multi-tasking until they dropped. Designated seating just for eating and relaxing, seating that stayed where it was, ready for a whimsical al fresco moment – that we did not have.
Eventually, on one of last year’s many ‘let’s hire a skip’ days where we started clearing out all our clutter, the wooden tables eventually went. Autumn and winter passed and we didn’t really miss them. A few huddles around the firepit were still managed on the trusty benches or just standing up, stamping feet to keep out the cold.
Last week, however, spring began to make its plans known. The 29 March, the date we can all meet in gardens again – well two households or any size or six people from different households, just for the record – was truly on the horizon. And thus it was time to go for broke. The dream chairs must be got.
Today, those chairs arrived! A quartet of green metal ‘Indian cinema chairs’ that were apparently used in mid-century Mumbai movie houses. Each chair has the same worn green powder-coated patina and simple folding design but the backs are engraved with individual lettering. Some are Roman script and look like acronyms – of names perhaps. Others look like Sanskrit, or possibly Urdu, Hindi or Arabic – with pictures currently with my dad (who is Indian) to translate.
Speaking of my dad, it is now nearly 3 years since my folks sat in my garden and I cannot wait for them to sit on these chairs. As the rule of six/two household thing looks set to stay for a while, we also have a few more on order. Dreaming of the day we can sit round a table together.
Also raked the raised beds and sowed the lettuces and radishes plus went for a 5k run, a walk and a play on the flats to soak in the sun. The sun makes everything feel so good, normal even. Spring is nearly here!