In the end I oiled it.
I considered varnish, but all that we could get was the newly environmentally friendly stuff, and frankly, it is useless.
I consulted my father, who is the oracle on such matters, and he said that oil would be fine, and would probably not need re-doing every couple of years or be otherwise irritatingly ineffective.
We had some Tung Oil, which we had bought because it is supposed to be all right for food preparation work surfaces. It might be, but it has been rubbish around the sink, which has gone black mouldy in the wettest places. I do not care about this any more, because we are going to have beautiful stone work surfaces any day now, and they will not go mouldy anywhere, or matter when I have accidents with joss sticks or candles or other incendiary devices. The old black and brown splotchy surface can go and be useful somewhere where it does not show. Mark’s shed, probably.
The instructions said to mix the first coat with fifty percent white spirit, the second coat with twenty five percent, and the third and fourth coats could be neat.
I thought I would not bother with such tiresome faffing about, and sloshed some into the tin. Then I realised that we did not have very much, and so in the spirit of economy tipped some white spirit into it anyway.
This all went fine until I realised that actually I did not have anything like enough, and had to go to the ironmonger’s for some more.
The ironmonger did not have any more. I could choose between Swedish Oil and Finishing Oil and Teak Oil and Linseed oil.
I rang the oracle for a further consultation.
The oracle opined that probably it would not matter, as did a helpful chap who was trying to decide between varieties of paint for garden furniture, so I bought the cheapest, which was Teak Oil.
The oracle and the garden furniture chap turned out to be right, and you could not tell the difference at all. At any rate, I couldn’t.
I thought that it looked lovely, in an oily sort of way, as if it were going to lie on the beach with a Martini and a Harold Robbins novel.
I had oil all over everything after that, and the clearing up took a while.
It was raining, and so the things I had thought I might do, like replanting the non-productive bean bed in the garden, did not appeal.
After a while I had an inspiration.
I thought that I might take my taxi into Bowness and see if anybody wanted to go anywhere.
We have not yet thought of any social distancing measures, and I have no intention of trying to drive in a face mask, or indeed to try and do anything in a face mask, awful things. I thought that if anybody wanted to go anywhere I could probably invent something reassuring to say, and drive with my head sticking out of the window if they objected to my breathing.
I do that anyway when they smell.
It was all quite exciting. I made myself a flask of tea, and then discovered that it is so long since I have used my taxi I could not find anything. I could not find my cash box, or my card machine, which was in any case flat, and the car keys were at the bottom of an old Asda shopping bag.
I could not even find the big roof sign which says Taxi on the top. It turned out to be behind the dustbin, full of water. I rang Mark, and he said to put it on the roof anyway, but to let it dry out for a while before actually plugging it in.
I drove slowly and inexpertly down to Bowness to the deserted taxi rank, where I waited, hopefully, in the rain, until I had drunk all of the tea.
There were no customers.
Nobody even walked past me.
In the end I drove home again.
It was not wasted time, because it has resolved any lingering guilt I have been feeling at not Giving It A Go Anyway. I have thought for a week or two that perhaps there might be some cash to be made here, even just by taking tired day trippers back to the car park.
There isn’t.
I can shirk with a clear conscience.
I haven’t taken a picture of the dresser again. Have one of the garden.
