Al Fresco

I got so much done yesterday! As you can see above, the scene of my work area. (Ignore that dead dog.)

I mentioned that Dave and I bought a new patio table, and we're getting rid of the old furniture. Well, the chairs above are from the old set. We've been debating whether to keep them -- they're in better condition than the table and the bench, and without them we'd have only two patio chairs, which wouldn't be great if we had people over.

So we decided to hang onto them, and I got out an old can of stain to restore their finish. (Color: "bramble." It appears to be the same stain whoever bought them used on them originally. Miraculously, it was still in our utility closet.)

Here's a comparison shot, just so you can see how weathered they looked before I began.

Behind the chairs, you'll see a row of five flowerpots. Those are our dahlias, which I finally replanted for the growing season. They've spent the winter as tubers resting in dry soil in our garden shed. They already had little pink sprouts coming out the top, even in the darkness!

In between these projects I read most of a New Yorker (I am so behind on my magazines) and took the dog, of course, to the cemetery. I met a couple of women there who are doing a survey of all the graves. One of them showed me a beautiful watercolor of one of the elaborate headstones, and they told me they plan to write a book. I'd buy it!

In the evening, Dave and I had a special dinner outside. We ordered from "Hide at Home," the takeaway service of Hide restaurant on Piccadilly, which you may remember we visited several months ago. We got the weekend set menu -- asparagus starter; duck with potatoes, greens and beetroot salad; and black forest gateau, all with a paired bottle of wine. We sat out and ate amid the cooing pigeons and the squawking parakeets and the chittering squirrels charging through the treetops, and appreciated the garden without the roar of overhead aircraft (a frequent pre-virus sound).

Once again, I marveled at how lucky we are.