Still useful after all these years

I am keeping the old garden seat. I bought it for Mum a few decades ago when she was still living in the old house. It’s perfectly placed to put the clothes basket and pegs on when I’m hanging out the washing – and bringing it in. It’s also useful as a potting bench.

There’s an even older, broken bench lurking at the back of the garden. It’s made of wrought iron and timber, and is slowly rotting away in the undergrowth with acanthus and a climbing rose pushing through it.

This area is what I call my ‘woodland garden’, tiny as it is, with rocks and rotting logs and hellebores planted on the graves of my former cats, Holly and Skipper.