Please Be Seated!

What Bob really wanted – and has been hankering after for a little while now, was a proper ‘Steamer Chair’ – something like this

But as the picture above shows one of only seven of the Titanic’s deckchairs [sold at auction for £100,000 back in April] and the modern day equivalents [shown below] are in the region of £200, I told him to forget that dream!! You can get modern ones cheaper- but they are usually slightly smaller in scale and don’t fit his 6’4” frame comfortably.

But then he saw a regular deckchair [2nd hand] on Wimborne Market for only £6. He sat on it, liked it, and bought it. The frame was grubby and the cream sling was a bit mildewed. I measured the sling, then washed it. It shrank from 135cm to 125 cm in length – and didn’t come clean either. Before our holiday, I got a 2 metre length of deckchair canvas for £12. Whilst we were in Norfolk, I found a slightly smaller chair with arms at a salvage yard. I haggled the guy down from £10 to £7. The sling on mine was fine, but again, the frame needed a refurb as the rivets were a bit loose. On our return, I made a swish new stripy sling**, and also added a head cushion with the leftover piece of canvas, Bob cleaned, and waxed the frames and tightened joints. Ta Dah!

The holidays may be over, but we did enjoy reclining on the new chairs to watch the Perseids on Wednesday night [until it clouded over] Please note the tray with flask of hot chocolate. We may not be sitting on two £100K deckchairs, but we can still enjoy a little bit of luxury – after all, we have saved ourselves £195,975. No risk of icebergs in our Dorset garden either.

**You cannot see because of the headcushion – but Bob’s chair also has a neat ‘carrying handle’ slot in the top of the frame to match my chair. And the slings are threaded on dowels so come off very easily for cleaning.