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Our pretty wrought iron gates that open onto our drive have been looking very sad for years. They were painted in a rather garish green, peeling badly.
In an uncharacteristic fit of enthusiasm, I bought some 'as close to Farrow and Ball stylish beigy, greeny, lizard' colour as I could find in the 'Crown Paints' range. Also some sandpaper, a stripper thingy, paints, white spirit etc. etc. I then did that thing that people do when they live here - I delegated the job to our gardener. For a week or so, dedicated stripping took place followed by careful painting at the heat of the day to speed up the drying process.
By the end they looked wonderfully smart.
This afternoon my husband drove his Rhino Charge car (huge, 4 wheel drive beast) straight into our smart gates. The result was a mangle of metal - tear jerking. His excuse 'I had no brakes - I had no where to go'.
I was secretly glad the gates were shut - if they had been open he would have sped out onto the road (down hill), possibly across oncoming traffic and into a stone wall. Did I say that my husband's godson (12) and his brother (11) was hanging off the back of the rhino charge car at the time? They looked white.
I didn't say anything - we all felt mildly in shock. I thought that new gates were in order. It was a mess.
My husband, being him, called in back up (a small army of fundis) and spent all afternoon welding the mangled wreck back together. We now have spot welded, bent, twisted gates hanging back up sort of crooked- but they are there in situ. Crisis (almost) averted.