Riverside Furniture - take two!

Having mourned the loss of our beautiful log seats to an anti-social element, we finally got around to making some new ones!

Mum, Rita, Anne, Martina + assorted kids testing out the new benches and 

Anne's amazing profiteroles after an easter egg hunt

I say we, but I actually mean my friends and fellow students Patrick Guerin (see photos below) and John Fitzgerald, who arrived early one misty morning armed with chainsaws and muscle. I made the tea :) They trimmed up a few willow trees for coppicing (which I'll be blogging about later in the season), then hoisted trunks and branches of deadwood up to the fire pit and made the seats: good, strong, sturdy ones dug about 6" into the ground. Very comfy they are, too, as we found out at 2012's first riverside community party.

Vandalism in the River Field

Our beautiful log seats have been burnt and our armchairs trashed.

Riverside furniture - a sitter's guide

We like to renew, reuse and recycle where possible here at the River Field.

These little log seats were cut with a chainsaw from an old sally tree we pulled out of the river.

The armchairs, meanwhile, were saved from a slow, dusty death of woodworm and barn mould. They are now enjoying their twilight years on the riverbank, while fishermen and people out for a stroll enjoy them.

I planted willow saplings to wind through the frames, and tomorrow I'm going to shove in some buddlia too to attract the butterflies.