This chair. This lovely chair.

This chair.

We have decided to give our old and trusted chair a place in the sun. Back in the days of living in Holland, painting clock dials,  and having very young children, we bought an old Saxon farm house that dated back to the sixteen hundreds. It was so old it had a National Trust preservation certification. The man who sold us the farm had fourteen children, seven sons and seven daughters. He used the farm as a holiday place and had it filled with not only the sound of many children but also many old pieces of furniture. They were mainly patched up old farm furniture.

Some would call those pieces ‘antique’, especially the armoires, but we prefer the term ‘old’. As part of the sale and a quick settlement he decided to include most of the old furniture. It also included old kerosene lights that used to be lowered from the ceilings for lighting by the counterweighed use of heavy steel balls. Perhaps they might have used candles in them as well.

When we decided to go back to Australia and after finding out that return visas had expired we had to go through the whole process of re-migration. In our favour was that our three Australian born children had Australian nationality as well as Dutch. A jovial Australian consular official put the stamp of approval within minutes and wished us luck. A nice bloke! Immigration officials now are of a different breed and are more likely to call in the black-shirted Border Control force, possibly with guns drawn.

We had all this old furniture packed in two large wooden crates back in 1976. It included most furniture that we still use today. Alas, and sadly so, one of the old wicker chairs had to be retired. When I think how our children and us and many others have had the joy and generosity of this chair, we do not have it within us to now carelessly dump it on Shire’s rubbish heap.  It would be cruel if not wantonly insensitive to leave it to its fate and get murdered and crushed by a large bulldozer.

We have decided to give it a rest in our front yard. It sits there now all bleached and worn looking, and next to the gas meter. I hope it doesn’t mind! In time this lovely chair might well be given its final rest and get reclaimed by the garden. In the meantime, it gets the afternoon sun but is also shaded by the Hebes when it gets the summer heat. I can’t but almost shed a tear when I think how much comfort and joy this lovely chair has given us.

This lovely chair. Thank you.