The Bench By The Gate Finally Got Fixed

The bench just inside the gate has been wobbling for months, ever since one of the back legs started sinking a little into the soft ground under the birch tree. I'd been meaning to sort it since spring and kept putting it off, mostly because it never seemed urgent enough to interrupt anything else.

It finally became urgent when a regular mentioned nearly tipping backward off it while waiting for a friend to finish a round inside. That was enough to move it up the list, so I spent a Sunday morning digging out the sunken leg and packing the hole properly instead of just propping it with a stone the way I had been.

The fox supervised from a safe distance, offering opinions on whether the bench should stay where it was or move a few feet closer to the lanterns. We left it in place in the end, mostly because moving it would've meant redoing the gravel path around it, and that felt like a bigger job than one Sunday could handle.

It sits level now, properly level, which is a small thing but a satisfying one. If you're waiting for someone before heading in to play, it should hold steady under you without any of the wobble that's apparently been annoying people for longer than I realized.

Next on the list is the gate hinge, which has developed a squeak that the owl finds far more amusing than I do. That one might wait until the weather turns properly again.