A few years back…

Our friend Cate said that our place looked like “a home for old people.”  She was talking about our garden and the chairs that were lined up invitingly all in a row.  She said it jokingly, but still… That was a few years back – when we were a lot younger and I could laugh at her description.  Now?  I wish we still had those chairs!

Nyel never did like them much.  They were hard to get in and out of but, more than that, he had to sit with his head at a peculiar (and uncomfortable) angle because the high back of the chair was not compatible with his hat.  (Hats are imperative for old people in the summer, you know.)  He toughed it out, mostly for my sake, I think.  In line with my general philosophy, ‘appearances are everything,’ I loved those chairs.  They were colorful and inviting – to young and old, I thought!

The Hat Problem

We’ve had our eye out for suitable replacements but, mostly, we’ve only seen clones of those dangerous, collapsing chairs.  So, we’ve done without.  Then I had a bit of an epiphany.  We have in our back-forty, eight ancient (and very banged up) folding metal chairs – they went with the card tables that my folks had back in the seventies and eighties.  I think they got them second-hand.  They’ve been used and misused for half a century and are so ugly that I can hardly stand them.  If only they were pretty, bright colors thought I.

Cans of spray paint at Jack’s were my solution.  Yesterday Nyel painted the first four.  I love them!  They won’t be especially comfortable but they look terrific and will serve the purpose – sitting at the picnic table or just hanging out admiring the bay — without hat issues.  Or gazing at the the flowers.  Or schmoozing with Cate and the other old people that might be joining us… if we ever have time to just sit around!