So, I was missing a spot to think and read and write.
Because …. I live with an animal who responds to unfamiliarity and stress by marking soft furnishings in her environment. Preferably soft furnishings that smell like me. So they then smell like the worst smelling fluid a cat body can make.
This is what happened to the the big grey beanbag I bought as a thinking spot when I moved here.
On Friday I scoured a couple of local shops looking for a replacement…and ….my,oh,my… I found!
I ended up in a big shed piled high with furniture rejected from Kath ‘n’ Kim’s bungalow, other pieces that used to be in the Lesser Hall of a small country town, clocks and fripperies from my grandmother’s house, old tins, pews, birdcages, kitchenettes, pith helmets, dressmaker’s dolls, hat pins, horsehair rugs… all tangled up together in random aisles. It felt like the proprietor loves the thrill of the chase, finding the most unusual and quirky furniture possible, then loses interest in repairing them or polishing them up or putting like with like.
The Chesterfield wingback chair had come in the night before. It has a small hole in leather in the front. But … the legs have been replaced with coasters, making it the perfect height for me. When I read I usually slouch across the chair with my legs dangling over one arm, and in this chair the back wing cradles my head perfectly. It’s like sitting in a big, firm hug.
It cost me less than a single new cane chair at the furniture shop in the nearby high street.
When I got home, I worked out from the label that it is over 30 years old and was made by one of the last Chesterfield master craftsmen in Australia. And these things have specially bowed birch frames. And the metal studs are handcrafted through a ridiculously esoteric process. The leather specially processed … hand rubbed, whatever that is…
For some reason the proprietor, who I have no doubt knew exactly what he had sold me, had more or less given it to me as a gift. Maybe it has…a past….
It’s in my front room now, and I think I now have a happy spot that will travel with me wherever I live in the future.
Oh, how lovely! A good reading chair is a must! I’ve finally reclaimed my ‘reading chair’ from my son’s nursery as it was temporarily moved there as a nursing/cuddles/reading chair over the last couple of years. It’s now back in my bedroom and oh, how I’ve missed it! I also dangle my legs over the side. So a good reading chair for me needs to have decent arm padding. I just need to work out some better lighting and book shelves on the wall and it’ll be my perfect, little sanctuary.