Today

At last it's warm enough to sit outside without woollies. Yesterday, being now retired, I took full advantage. I slapped on some factor 60, poured myself a glass of water and another of Madeira, took out my Harry Potter book and soaked up the sun.

Our garden is entirely patio, so there's no stretching on grass. Until we've replaced the mouse-nibbled loungers, there's really no stretching at all. However, we have our lovely cast iron furniture - and sunshades, of course.

Paul and I frequently take lunch outside; when the weather really warms up breakfast also. We like to sit out in the warm evenings with wine, candles and the chimenea (although that was irreparably cracked over the winter).

In My Day

When I was a child, garden furniture always involved striped canvas and wood. There were deckchairs whose construction required greater problem-solving skills than I had and which, even when erected properly, could collapse suddenly. Sometimes the canvas tore or the wood broke - I treated these contraptions with respect and fear and preferred to sit on the grass on a blanket.

We didn't have sunshades, although Daddy had a personal deckchair that had its own parasol attached. For the rest of us when Mamma or Daddy decided that tea would be taken outside, we had the "shelter". This was a canvas and wooden structure, which, when erected, looked like a stripey lean-to. It was orangey in shade and had a small fringed overhang at the front to keep off the sun and was tall enough for an adult to stand up in.

One could have made a good Laurel & Hardy type film of the struggles and arguments we had when trying to put it up. Once you'd got it up, you always hoped that no-one had been watching.....

Doing the job properly meant some tent pegs to hold it in place. We were often too lazy and many times had to scramble madly to catch it as the wind threatened to send it sailing off above the trees.

You could put the tea table in it to stop the butter melting too quickly or the milk curdling, or you could just sit in it, protected from the sun. It was such a job, getting it out and erected that the tea always tasted a little better, as though you'd really earned it. And the garden was a long way from the kitchen.

So we have it easy, Paul and I, with the garden table 4 paces away from the wine bottle and corkscrew.