It’s not often garden furniture makes the news but, just the other day, an entire set was stolen in broad daylight from a garden in Weymouth – around the Lanehouse Rocks area. It wasn’t a simple operation either; the thief stole a large wooden table and two benches from a front garden! Anybody who has any dealings within the industry knows just how exceptionally heavy decent-quality wood garden furniture is – it must have taken a significant amount of time to nick!

As awful as it is that a 68-year-old has had their garden furniture stolen, I feel the worst part about the whole tale is how police came to discover the details of the crime. According to sources, the neighbours of the elderly victim “saw a heavy-set man…lift the table and chairs over the wall and load them into his van”. That’s right; they SAW the man stealing the furniture…and did nothing! Aparently they thought it was “in connection with building work at the property”. How much more English can you get than that? A large man pulls up in a white van, carries an entire set of garden furniture over the wall and witnesses don’t want to bother him to ask why!

The neighbours went on to say “It’s stealing, however you look at it, in broad daylight. People should be able to leave things in their own front gardens.” Yes, you’re right! People should feel safe to leave their things in the front garden and assume their neighbours won’t sit back and watch as men in white vans pull up and steal it all in broad daylight!

What is the world coming to?

I hope everybody reading will understand the expression ‘wisdom dressed in stupid clothes’. Although I’ve just invented it on the spot, it refers to the everyday occurance of somebody saying or doing something fairly dim, which unintentionally makes a decent point. Asking “Do you play the guitar?” to somebody strumming away is clearly an absurb inquiry; what it does, however, is raise the more sublte question of whether or not that person should actually be playing the guitar at that moment in time. Try it next time you’re at a funeral.

I raise this point because somebody in my line of work recently claimed “Having a four-person set of garden furniture may cause problems during gatherings of more than four people.” This point seemed so obvious that I was tempted to strike the speaker about the face for wasting everybody’s time. Before I could raise my hand, however, a decent point emerged from his otherwise abhorrent assault on my mental faculties. It occured to me that, while it may seem sensible to buy garden furniture based on the number of people in your household, it is perhaps wiser to buy it based on when you are likely to use it. My grandma, for example, never sits outside unless she has company – yet she only has one garden chair, because she lives alone. This is a ridiculous state of affairs – if you tend to use garden furniture when you entertain people, make sure you buy the furniture with this is mind!

Many of you will remember, like I do, the days when garden furniture consisted of deck chairs and the occasional wooden table. Some people would splash out on metal furniture but, by and large, it was considered something of a pain of the butt (literally).

For one thing, it was heavy and cumbersome, so you couldn’t really move it around. For another, over time the paint would chip off, leaving the metal exposion to corrosion. Since most the furniture was painted white, this meant the ensuing rust would dominate the overall apperance of the furniture, making it unsightly as well as uncomfortable and unconvenient.

Come the 90s, however, people found a solution in plastic, or so they thought. Plastic was cheaper than wood and metal and it didn’t decay or rust either! That it was easy to clean was an added advantage, as was the fact that you could leave it out all year long and it would look exactly the same as it did to start with…which was horrible. Yes, despite the various advantages it offered, plastic looked nasty, felt nasty and, normally at the most inconvenient of times, it would snap, bend or warp irrepairably – normally resulting in mess and embarrssment.

What joy, then, that we now find ourselves in the age of aluminium furniture! Metal furnishings that are lightweight, easy to clean and virtually unbreakable; yet they also don’t rust, don’t go mouldy and don’t cost the earth either! These you can leave out all year long and find them just as they were when you left them – garden furniture in its smartest form.

Although sitting outside at this time of year is probably illegal under the suicide act (if that’s even a real thing), there is increasing amounts of evidence suggesting people who spend more time relaxing in the garden are less likely to suffer from mood disorders and mental illnesses like depression and anxiety.

Granted, dead people can’t be sad – but that’s not the point. The idea is that, during the warmer months of the year (both of them), spending time in a green environment can genuinely help relax your mind and body, greatly alleviating the negative impact of long, cold winters. This effect is actually enhanced with the addition of garden furniture, allowing you to totally relax outdoors – be it napping in the sunshine, dining al fresco with the family or simply lounging about in a favourite chair. In fact, surveys taken last summer revealed that people who possess garden furniture spend up to 200% more time out in the garden than those who don’t! Before you ask, yes – everybody questioned did have a garden (I thought that myself, so checked up on it!)

Bonfire night approaches and it’s about time too! All year long I wait for the one time when we get to celebrate rebellion and the courage of people who stand up for what they believe in, no matter what grisly fate may befall them. In my opinion, this country could really use a good dose of this old fashioned courage; there’d be no expenses scandal if the MPs knew we might blow them sky high!

Of course, the reason I am reminding you of bonfire night is that many people forget the damage that bonfires can do to their garden furniture. Merely having your garden bench too close to the fire can warp it permanently and dry the wood out awfully. Paint will flake off and the wood can even start to splinter and char! When it comes to plastic furniture, it doesn’t take a genius to realise that hot fires and soft plastic chairs don’t mix…

Another very, very important thing to remember is the effect that bonfires have on aluminium furniture. Although it is fairly resistant to bending and warping, aluminium furniture can get VERY hot if it is too close to a fire! Believe me, few things will ruin your bonfire night quicker than sitting on a burning hot metal garden chair! Be wise; keep the garden furniture far away from the flames…

In a wake of a series of robberies, including that of an iron garden bench in Exmouth last week, it falls to me to warn you that even your garden furniture is not safe in this desolate age…

I know the credit crunch is affecting everybody and I can understand that sometimes people resort to crazy means to get by; but stealing a wrought iron garden bench?!  How is it even possible to make a quick, clean getaway with a hunk of garden furniture that normally takes at least two people a fair amount of effort simply to move from one side of the patio to another?

Believe me, I have moved enough garden benches in my time to know exactly how tricky this would be. This leads me to the conclusion that this was definitely a team effort, which is a worrying conclusion to draw!  It suggests there are teams of criminals wondering the land, intent on (and capable of) stealing your garden furniture!

I’ve always said chaining your benches and flowerpots to the ground ruins the free aesthetics of the place, but I’m starting to wonder whether this is a risk we can really take!

We all remember the recent expenses scandal; the disgusting misuse of public money by the people we are supposed to be able to trust.  Well, according to Sir Thomas Legg’s new insights into MPs’ spending; garden furniture is amongst one of the many things MPs claimed for in their Additional Cost Allowance – designed to reimburse them for the costs of running a second home.  According to the Department of Finance and Administration’s Green Book, these expenses must be “wholly, exclusively and necessarily” incurred to enable the MP to stay away from their main home for a night.

You don’t need to be a professional to realise patio furnishings are most definitely not a necessity when it comes to staying away from home for a night.  Not unless you are a tramp anyway – in which case garden furniture is probably your main home in the first place and you’d be lucky to find yourself running the country.  It may seem like a silly point to make, but think about it; there are thousands of people who can’t afford a house, yet MPs were claiming back money they spent putting garden furniture in the gardens of their extra houses!  Houses they are only allowed to own so they can make it to parliament and such other meetings of the damned!  Why are we not in the streets right now, overthrowing these people?!