Mariadz has a spacious saloon with a large table meant for many people to eat and socialise around. And Maria and I have done our fair share of that! I expect that will also happen a lot when we go on our travels, if the opinion of John Rodriguez (the yacht broker and round-the-worlder) is anything to go by.

Although there is a sofa on three sides of the saloon table, you need standalone chairs for one of the longer sides if there are a lot of people.

Originally when we first got into boating we bought some cheap and cheerful directors’ chairs with Mariadz on the backs. These are lightly made and don’t stand up to much punishment, or time, particularly. In fact we have gone through a few sets of these as they have fallen apart. Being a bit of a hoarder, I have generally salvaged what I can from the broken chairs to use as spares for future chairs. However we always decided that, before we go, we would splash out on some well made, sturdy chairs that will last.  Unfortunately these cost nearly ten times as much! So that expenditure hadn’t been prioritised….

I am in the fortunate position of having both a mother-in-law and a step mother-in-law who I get on with very well. Jean, Maria’s step-mum, wanted to give us some money at Christmas and we were keen to buy something that would last and was tangibly from her.

Step forward our beautiful new onward trading directors’ chairs. We knew what we wanted and so went to the London Boat Show earlier this year with the intent of finding these chairs.  We rarely do to this show any more because there is hardly anything there, preferring the Southampton boat show, but we were in luck and stumbled across their store. The boat show price was good and we were also able to get Mariadz embroidered on the backs in gold, I’m assuming real gold.  These chairs are built from harder wood which is thicker, feel sturdy and good quality and are light years ahead of the old chairs.  The cushions are very comfortable although we also had other options on these which Maria had to think long and hard about. It means that we spent More than an hour choosing exactly what we wanted, and this also included having to find our friend Dan to give us another opinion! When you consider that we knew exactly what we wanted before we arrived, this sounds even more ridiculous. They are now in pride of place in the saloon.  This has presented me with a couple of problems: Maria now looks at the upholstery in the saloon and wants to change it to match the colour of the seats and they are so nice I am loath to put them into the lazzerette for fear of damaging them. Now I need something to protect them! Maybe another bag….

Finally, and most importantly, thank you my step mother-in-law Jean Smallwood.