White Garden Bench

Good morning lovelies, how are you on this beautiful and sundrenched day? I am looking forward to a day of celebrations.

Today it is May 5, the day we celebrate freedom, democracy and peace here in the Netherlands. Yesterday evening we all stood still and mourned those who gave their lives for that freedom.

 

 

So yesterday all the flags were at half-mast and there were memorial services all over the country. Like this one, in my town.

Today there will be festivals and concerts and all kinds of festivities and the flags will be in full swing.

We don’t have a flag-post on our house, yet. We will soon, but we didn’t get around to installing one this year. So no flag in my front yard. But I did try to do a bit of red, white and blue anyway.

 

 

I finally finished the garden bench I had always intended to put in front of our house. It is white and I flanked it with some blue pots with white and red flowers.

The garden bench was quite a restoration project. We took it with us when we cleared out my in-laws house in 2009 (you can read the lesson I learned doing that here, and you can see what I brought home with me from thrifting at in-the laws here, and here and some more here).

The wood of the bench was rotted through and the iron was about to start rusting.

 

 

My Love replaced all the wood and I treated and painted the iron bits and then painted everything with outdoor paint.

 

 

I love how that white bench is like a spot of light in that green front yard.

The garden in front of our house is really small and it is north facing, so it doesn’t get a lot of sunshine. I am trying to work towards a garden here with lots of different greens, different kind of foliage and with white flowers to bring in light.

 

 

The garden isn’t there yet, but it is growing better every year. I think this white bench really helps making my vision come closer.

 

 

I am not sure if we will sit here often, My Love isn’t about sitting in front of your house, he prefers to sit in private at the back. But when it is really hot in the summer, this might be the coolest place to sit, so who knows maybe we’ll start making a habit of lounging here with a cool drink on long hot summer nights.

 

 

Red, white and blue, the colors of my country. The colors on this day. The colors in my front garden today.

 

 

I love that we were able to rescue this bench. It is yet another memory to my mother and father-in-law that we have, and that we will cherish.

 

 

Remember tomorrow it is party time and we will celebrate that we have all found each other here at Songbird and that we all love white. I’ll publish my post tomorrow at 8 am my time (that would be GMT +1), so depending on where you live you can start linking up Thursday evening or Friday morning. I hope you will all come celebrate with me.