After many months of cutting down an overgrown wilderness, a garden appeared.  The birch trees flourished with a bit of tlc, shading their roots, mulching and a lot of watering when the heat was extreme in August.  But something was missing.  A garden bench.  I wanted a quiet spot to sit, to write notes for my blog and books in progress, or simply to grab a gardening break and stare into meditational space.

I have always loved woodwork, restoring furniture, making and crafting.  We had a lot of old reclaimed wood around the barn and have amassed quite a pile to be used for table tops, window sills and benches.  Gardens should be full of seats and benches, to sit awhile to enjoy the garden, rest or take friends to sit for a coffee and a catch up.

I cleaned up the old piece of reclaimed wood, chiselling out rotten sections and rounding the edges.  My Dad left me all his tools.  he loved carpentry so I inherited a full set of chisels – round ones, big heavy flat ones and triangular ones for detailing.

Tony made the legs and I painted a few coats of this soft green to contrast with the wooden seat, finished in an oil stain preservative.  All assembled, with a quirky little back rest, it took pride of place under the birch by the back meadow.

I then had an idea.  I love wild flowers.  So I drilled a hole in the seat to hold posies of flowers.  I like the idea of seats having places to hold things.  This bench also has a little groove at the back that just holds a pencil when I am writing notes.  I have a lot more projects for next year, including a peg basket, a string holder, and a large table for the vegetable garden.  I cant always find what I want in the local shops, or some items like string holders are not practical and keep falling over, so making your own solves that problems and you can tailor perfectly.  Will put these projects on the blog in due course.

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