A View with a Room

When we first moved here we inherited a garden bench. It was sad and neglected much like the rest of the garden. In their wisdom someone decided the best place to sit and enjoy the view was in the bare patch of ground in front of the enormous pine tree and gaze lazily at the front of the house.

We brought 3 garden seats with us and have since bought 5 more. Ruprecht has also made a rustic bench and I'm not promising it will be the last. Not counting the deck we now have 10 places to sit and enjoy the view. (I seem to have more benches than friends.) Not content with that we occasionally drag out the plastic chairs and plonk ourselves in the middle of the current work area.

It has become a standing joke that when we stop and rest from what we are doing in the garden, one of us will say, "a bench would be good here!" Truly, every view is just a little bit different from the last, special and unique in its own way.

So the next few blogs will take you, dear reader, on a journey around the garden, enjoying the view from one or two of our places to sit. Today's journey will start with our inherited bench.

When we first saw this property, this bench was deemed interesting enough to be included in the For Sale shots on the website. It was in the only part of the garden that wasn't overgrown. In fact it was in the only part of the garden that was undergrown, suffering from too much shade from the giant Christmas tree (which is pretty cool, BTW).

It has stayed in this area but we moved it so we could see garden instead of house when we sit there. We had to create the garden, but that's another story. Funnily enough it is one of my favourite benches. The wrought iron panel is an intricate pattern of deer heads - almost Christmasy. The wood was on its way out 8 years ago when we first moved here and needed replacing. As a bit of whimsy (so unlike us) we painted it purple. It is now a patch of purple with a purple bird bath and pot joining it in its purpleness. We have minature daffodils growing in the pot, a legacy from our lovely neighbours who had a field of daffodils growing just over our fence. When I say field I mean an acre. They neighbours are gone now and so is the field.

This is a great place to sit on a hot summer's day, in the shade of the large trees that surround it. The birds also use it as their waiting room as they take turns to have a bath. We can see this purple patch from the house and have had many lovely moments watching the birds frolicking in the water.

So 1 down 9 to go. I think I might share the fernery (Cairns) and Uluru with you next. So til next time - same mugrat time, same mugrat channel - stay tuned.