01 January 2008

Farewell to the old recliner

Over our garage there is a flat roof that is at the end of its natural life. We want to replace the flat roof with a pitched roof. In common with many British people, we also use our garage for storage. Not everything that has been stored is worth retaining, and some of what is in the garage is there because of a failure to decide on how to dispose appropriately of each item. Having now entered the preparation period for the prospective and highly intrusive building work, further opportunity for delay in making disposal decisions has finally evaporated. Parting with what is not required should be easy, although finding new owners may take time and effort. Parting with what could have been useful, but never has been, requires a readjustment of priorities: for the duration of the building work, space will be at a premium. Parting with what has been of some, albeit limited, use, is more demanding, particularly when there is history involved. This is the story of the reclining chair. Although little used now, it has been of much service in the past: a place to nurse a colicky child through the night, a place of refuge from nocturnal noise, a postural respite from the griping pain and nauseous choking that are symptoms of an hiatus hernia. We acquired the chair from Tim Bond in 1991, long before he and his wife Jan moved from Durham to Bristol. The chair saw two of our houses. Despite its age and long-service, it still works well, and even recently has provided much-needed seating when we have had guests. Who knows whether it could have had a new lease of life in our future? However, it is bulky and cumbersome, features that have become more costly to us. So I advertised it on Durham Freecycle. A family who had recently relocated to Durham from Houston, Texas, were in need of some furniture and expressed an interest in the chair. With the help of a Korean friend, they collected the chair yesterday, 31 December 2007. It has gone to a good home, and will undoubtedly be made better use of by them than by us. Farewell old recliner.