Resistance is futile

I tried. I really tried. I went to Arbutus with every intention of buying garden-variety wood stain. I’d decided to go with pine, as this would be lighter. I even had a tin in my hand, all set to go. And then, in a moment reminiscent of those in my twenties when a pair of shoes I hadn’t even known I needed would suddenly scream my name as I walked past them in a shop window in Oxford Street, in just such a moment as that, I spotted something. Like those shoes (oh, so many pairs of shoes), as soon as I became aware that such a thing as turquoise wood stain existed, I had to have it. 

Down to the garden first thing this morning (first guaranteed sunny day in a while) to get cracking. 

Seriously, how fabulous is this?

Unfortunately, once the strawberry/blueberry bed frames were done, a problem with the other frames became immediately apparent. I cannot not stain them in situ. Manage – with some difficulty – to shift the one on the left and get it stained, but moving the other two is definitely a two-person job, and I am but one person.

So, a message is left on Mr Fixit’s answering machine, in the hope that he might be able to pop over later today or sometime tomorrow.

After that, it’s just a question of acquiring and attaching some wire mesh. (I do have some plastic netting in the shed, but it’s a bitch to work with and anyway the holes might be big enough to trap and endanger small birds. Definitely not the object of the exercise.) Hopefully I will get around to this part of the job before the birds start eating the berries.