Sal likes rustic furniture. So do I. So, she ‘fishes’ worn boards and sea-scrubbed branches from the ocean now and then and drags it all up the beach to dry out. Then – when her energy is high – she tells me to make something.

When we are working out at the garden boxes, we are, of course, mostly standing but lately we have been taking a thermos of tea and having more frequent breaks than before. But there is nowhere to sit so the next ‘rustica’ is supposed to be a bench.

“Can we have arms this time? I’d like to have arm rests, you know, for the tea?”

“Arms? Sweetie, I can barely make the legs reach the ground. And I have gravity on my side. I can’t imagine adding ‘arms’. You sure?”

“Yeah. Arms. And a nice back. Something to lean against. Maybe a curved back kinda thing……………ya know?”

“Sure. Why not? I just hope the sea coughed up the right materials in the right dimensions and some of it is curved just so. If not, you might have to be satisfied with RUSTIC ya know?

“Sal, the charm of rustic is that it is, well, crude and clunky and make-do. Ya gotta accept ‘clunky’ if you want rustic”.

“Yeah, I know. I just want comfortable, ‘nice’ rustic. You know. Something like you’d see from those other rustic furniture guys.”

“I am too rustic for you! You are shopping me?”

“Well, arms would be nice.”

So, there you have it………….the ugly side of rustic furniture making. The keeping up with the Hatfields and the McCoys and their logs and branches, flotsam and jetsam boards.

The competition is fierce.