I have just cleaned the cat fur from my four dining chairs for the last time - this time tomorrow the chairs will be history, having gone to the great kitchen in the... well to the tip, actually.  I have only cleaned the cat fur off of them because this evening, in a fitting 'last supper', they will be sat on by visitors who have come round to help with making props for the Christmas Eve service.

I came by these chairs, along with a table that lasted around seven days, when I bought my first house in Derby.  The vendors' dog had chewed the legs of all the chairs and epsecially the table and they weren't going to take it to their brand new home, oh no.  I think I may have paid for the chairs, I can't recall; they certainly sold me other bits and pieces that turned out to be impossible to move when I sold the place two years later - ah well.

More than 27 years on, and 4/5 (depending how you count) house moves later, these chairs have served me incredibly well.  They have been climbed on by cats and children, had paint, food, drinks, glitter, glue and goodness knows what spilled onto them.  They have witnessed laughter and tears, been the place where essays were written, sermons planned and earnest conversations held.

They are, it has to be said well and trully worn out, should probably have been replaced at least two decades ago but somehow there was always something better to do with the moeny I had at the time.

So tomorrow they take their final journey and will end their days dismantled and disseminated between various skips at the recycling centre, well hopefully, it is entriely feasible they'll end up in landfiill.

Well done good and faithful chairs, you have served me well.  May you rot in peace!!