Our cottage is built for relaxation. When tiredness grabs you there’s a three person settee to slouch on, newly covered in burgundy stripes; big feathery cushions ideal for sinking in.
There are two armchairs with grubby arms, but they are equally comfortable.
The old git’s armchair is next to the fire and mine/anybodies is under the window.
When we had the sofa reupholstered, the dawter made me throw away lots of cushions.
‘Cluttered the room’ she snapped.
The sofa has a burgundy and gold throw, a bit shrunken from an idiot dry cleaner.
Four tapestry cushions that are just right for an evening in front of the fire.
For me tiredness does not hecessarily require bed rest. There’s a sloppy bean bag to schlomp on and woolly rugs to stretch and snooze on.
I grew up with a father who changed the wall paper colour every year. Woodchip, which he hung himself. The need to redecorate every twelve months was in tandem with him buying a new car. I spent my childhood smelling new leather seats and being given a spin round Boreham Wood in his blue Cortina, black Zephyr with red seats and an E type Jag. My father was a hooligan.
The last colour scheme was black, which set off two Ercole armchairs and an Ercole settee.
Tweedy cushions and polished Scandinavian pine.
The Welsh Chapel being renovated by Keith Brymer Jones and Marj Hogarth included Ercole arm chairs which are now considered dead trendy.
When we moved into the cottage in 1984 the old thespian was giving his “Wilf’ on Coronation Street. I spent my time alone. Tea chests, still smelling of Darjeeling, were used as tables.
We brought minimal furniture from London, our bed and my mothers bureau filled with books.
Her father paid off weekly for fifty brown and gold embossed classics from Hans Christian Andersens’ ‘Fairy Tales’ to Woods’ ‘East Lynne’. My grandpa died of peritonitis before he got to the end of the alphabet
A massive table, courtesy of the Oddies’, made Fromm railway sleepers and a dresser from Wappin, and an assortment of rickety chairs.
The cottage kitchen was utilitarian with a grubby old white enamel oven, a small kitchen table which stood on swirly brown Lino and a nearly functioning fridge.
Endless arguments ensued, deciding on the decor.
The bathroom and kitchen needed a total refurbishment whilst the bedrooms were really tired.
I was 36, and him 42, we spent our time getting to know each other’s taste.
I swapped the sleeper table, which seated twelve easily, for a hat stand, an antique Danish stove and a beautiful pine kitchen table with a ridiculous drawer that holds more candles than ‘Prices’.
So badly did I miss the ‘sleeper’ that I went into therapy. I bought it back and it stood where the piano now lives.
It is now common for the British to eat off their laps whilst watching garbage on their laptops. We weren’t allowed to watch the box whilst eating. I grew up with a kitchen table, four table mats, condiments in the middle and four chairs. People talked, shouted over the soup, screamed over the toad-in-the-hole and calmed down over tinned peaches and custard. A three course meal prepared from scratch every night.
Conviviality starts round a table. I’ve never wanted a marble counter, with high, uncomfortable stools. Having to talk to folk from side to side like Wimbledon.
We now have six matching chairs. Well five actually, one of them broke. This table has seen as many as twelve eaters squeezed round it. When we have guests we drag in the piano stool and spare chairs from down in the cellar
We have a big kitchen chair that sits at the head of the table. It normally lives next to the stove and looks like an illustration in a children’s book. Two yellow patterned cushions sit on the seat, it’s a perfect chair to listen to’Desert Island Discs.
When we moved from London Town we hired a van to bring down our life.
Included was a yellow wooden skinny chair that had been made for me in my first ever professional production. ‘Old King Cole.’ written and directed by Ken Campbell.
The old git played my love interest in Leeds at the same time although neither of us knew it.
It stood outside by the kitchen wall for years, Princess Daphne’s throne. The weather got it in the end. It was chopped up for firewood.
That production was a learning curve, Stephanie Cole played my mother, Queen Brenda. and taught me how to listen; if anybody said the wrong line, she instructed me, to stay schtum until they delivered the correct text. I was 21 and she wasn’t.
The second chair I brought with me was a straw seated Ladder Back given to me by my first boyfriend.
He worked in his uncle’s green grocer’s shop so he brought me fancy fruit, which I refused to eat wanting to keep his gifts for ever. He introduced me to muscatel grapes which rotted on my chest of drawers.
His present buying was exceptional. He gave me a chunky copper saucepan which sits on the kitchen window sill with Aloe Vera in it.
He gifted me a froggy bean bag which hangs on a branch of a Begonia Rex.
And a single vinyl record of ‘Jennifer Juniper’ by Donovan, it’s in the studio, The blue sleeve has his 17-year-old handwriting. Faded now.
His ladder back chair has his signature written, in black ink, under the straw seat.
That chair lives outside the bathroom. Like a Terence Rattigan play family and friends wait on it whilst the bathroom is occupied.
In my bedroom is a little white chair with BETHANY painted on it.
A darling man bought it for her 38 years ago. It has a white rabbit from Galway, and three ducks. One a brown furry duckling; one disabled as I sat it on a lamp and it caught alight; the third duck has striped socks and was a replacement for the singed one. The ducks are from the grandchildren. They call me, ‘Ducky’ on account of my disgusting language. They decided to find a rhyme with ‘fuck’. Hence ‘Duck-eeeeee’.
I did have a proper 1960’s bucket chair but left it out in the rain.
I also have a nursing chair which is bouncy and just right to sit in with a baby on your knee. I had it recovered by a neighbour with material bought in Hackney. Jesus Christ looks at you from every angle.
In the studio there are two beautiful re-upholstered chairs that sit round the Oddie table.
Everytime I scrub the kitchen table it makes me think of my Bubba Sophie.
High stools and a marble topped counter just won’t do for us. We’re old and traditional. I’m sitting on a kitchen chair now.
Proper wood
Proper old.
Proper comfortable.
Hundreds of people have parked their bums on them, and thats just the way I like it.