NEW BENCH

Over the Bank Holiday weekend, at last we finally managed to find a couple of hours of sunshine and were able to put together the flat-pack garden seating that was delivered sometime way back in March, just before it began snowing again.

You could argue, of course, in the spirit of the great coincidental legends that clutter all our lives, that there was a direct correlation of cause and effect from me taking delivery of the hope brought along with new garden seating and the ensuing despair-inducing weather that followed, so that it might be believed that the recent cold snap was all my fault…

If you believe in such nonsense of course, like a cricket team always playing better when I’m not listening, but it must be said that, since I put the new bench together on a Monday afternoon so blisteringly hot that the nuts and bolts started to melt their way out of their plastic wrapping, it has started raining again…

Just saying…

So, if it turns out that it actually is my fault that our brief summer is well and truly over and that we are now looking at the prospect of six months of non-stop rain, then I can only apologise.

Meanwhile, I have to ask… Is it excessive, or perhaps a sign of my mistrust of my neighbours, for me to decide to chain up my new bench…?

Or is it just symptomatic of my wider mistrust of society as a whole…?

I mean, in the topsy-turvy, back-to-front world that is our tiny house and garden, the thing is relatively exposed by being outside and on full public view, and whilst there have been few incidents of the kind of opportunistic theft that this might bring along with it, there have been some (as well as the odd jolly prank…), and we are living in austere times when petty thievery and the notion that if you’re idiotic enough to leave stuff outside it’s your own fault if it goes walkabout seems to be increasing again.

After a couple of worrisome days of expecting the thing to vanish, I went and bought a padlock and chain from a DIY store, after having spectacularly failed to find an aesthetically pleasing bicycle lock that seemed fit for purpose.

I know, of course, that this will not deter the more determined thief, but might just be awkward enough to discourage the opportunist, at least until I think that the new bench has been out there long enough to feel as if its always been there.

It’s a strange kind of double standard that I have with such neuroses. I mean, if I left a few twenty pound notes outside my house, I would be kind of surprised to find them to be still there in the morning, but my car cost me thousands and I leave it outside every night, so why would the possible disappearance of a bench that is worth far less than that worry me so much more..?

I think it comes down to the amount of sheer bloody effort the thing took to put together and the thought of having to go through all of the rigmarole required to replace it and rebuild it all over again that makes me so jittery.

Anyway, despite all of the anxiety it caused me, for a few short hours, we were able to sit outside and enjoy the brief snatch of summer sunshine, and look forward to being able to do so again at some far distant point in the future whenever the sun chooses to come out again...