Objects of Affection

The table that’s not just a table

It’s been a hell of a week. It’s been a hell of a fortnight. One day it’ll be possible for me to be the true over-sharer I truly am and just blurt everything out, but for now I am being sanguine and demure. It does not come easily. Want a clue: parenting, parenting in parallel, just the sadness of it at times.

The other preoccupation of late has been The Table. It’s taken on proper noun status given the amount of time and discussion it’s been allocated. Let me start at the beginning.

We have a patio area at the bottom of the garden that used to be a bramble jungle. A few years ago I paid a lot of money for a brilliant gardener to remove the roots of the bramble and lay a patio with the intent of this being an area of chatter, lively discussion and general fairy world whimsy before any of those descriptors were keyword searches on Etsy.

The bottom of the garden took on a new status. It represented what a perfect family could look like. I bought a fire pit, a pizza oven, a big table, striped deck chairs and a hammock. I left antique charity shop foraged mirrors against the brick wall, solar powered fairy lights draped over the shed. Did I mention I renovated the shed? I did so much work on it, if it were human I think it would have completely new DNA. New roof, new floor, new guttering, re-painted inside and out. A tiled outside shelf! The bottom of the garden was a place for when we were perfect because it was perfect. It held so much hope.

And then it didn’t get used. I exaggerate. We used it maybe 10 times for eating outside. My eldest son had a few beers around it with pals post exams, mainly because I pathetically offered homemade burgers and hotdogs. When we got a puppy the pizza oven took on a whole new status of being the potential cause of our dog’s death. (Never knowingly under catastrophised). And then the bloody John Lewis acacia table warped in the rain, despite the assurance from the shop that it was weatherproof.

So over the last month, as the weather improved, my new obsession has been finding a garden table. I wanted a green metal one but alas, the only ones I liked were expensive and these days my caring responsibilities mean I barely work. I decided on finding an old wooden table, sanding it and painting it zippy colours and then storing it in the shed when not in use. Sounded like a plan. Ebay came up with the goods, I arranged to collect a big slightly knackered and already painted brown dining table from a local lady. What I didn’t reckon on was the history.

Now look, I paid under £30 for this table, it was not in the best state, but that’s what I wanted. After spending hard on the patio area that would make us the perfect family I would not be making the mistake of throwing money at the problem again. Cheap second-hand furniture, paint from the garage graveyard of remnant tins and a bit of elbow grease.

But the table was not just a table to the lovely lady who lived in the retirement flat. It was The Christmas Table. The clue was in the photo, the tinsel of course.

She explained as she unlocked the garage that the table held a lot of memories. That it was the extra Christmas table and that selling it was hard. But it wasn’t used anymore as her son preferred a long thin table at his house, without the food in the centre. She no longer hosted Christmas Day. I felt a responsibility to this lovely lady and promised her I would be looking after it, that it would have food in the centre again and lots of people sitting at it in my garden.

She looked so sad. The garden confession had been a mistake. I explained it would be stored in the shed, not outside. She said I mustn’t put anything heavy on it, I mustn’t scratch it as I moved it to the car. She offered a tea towel to protect it but I declined and explained I’d be sanding it anyway. It felt like a forced rehoming.

(Evidence that The Table does actually need a spruce up - I feel like you need to know that. I’m not sanding it without good reason etc etc).

I messaged the seller later to say thank you and that I would look after her table, that I’d sand it and repaint it and it’d host lunches again. She messaged back to say perhaps just a light sanding, that she suspected it might have a thin veneer and not withstand anything more. It felt like a metaphor for life, especially after the week I’ve had.

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