Keeping entertained during the COVID crisis.
A garden bar is great for entertaining during normal times. However, when the pubs are close and you are on your own, they can provide the illusion of going out, if you have decorated appropriately.
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Many years ago when I first moved into my house, I was on the lookout for a dining table. I had previously made do with a plastic patio table covered with a tablecloth. Then while out on my lunch break in Leeds I was drawn to a table that I saw in a shop out of the corner of my eye.
It looked amazing and in view of my need for a dining table it did not take long for me to buy this wonderful piece of furniture. It looked both rich and exotic and had great uniqueness value.
When it arrived what struck me most was that it was very heavy, and I could see why the centre of the table had a non palm wood mosaic texture; the table would otherwise have been much too heavy. It is apparently a very durable wood, comparable in some way to mahogany though at a fraction of the production cost and with minimal environmental impact. This means that higher grades can be used in construction, and it has also been used to produce very attractive floor boards. I guess the weight reflects this durability.
When I bought my dining set, I didn’t realise that palm wood has a reputation of being a very sustainable material (1). I guess the boast value of helping to save the planet it’s an unexpected and welcome added bonus. Coconut palms grow quickly and have a productive life, not least from the coconuts themselves, but they are also a source for food, oil, charcoal, soap and cosmetics (2).
It is not harvested for its timber until the period of coconut production has come to an end. Typically this harvest comes after 70 years of useful production. So, very sustainable indeed. The timber (3) is visible in the image below.
_in_Klaten,_Java.jpg#/media/File:Gelugu_(coconut_wood)_in_Klaten,_Java.jpg)
By No machine-readable author provided. Meursault2004 assumed (based on copyright claims). – No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
The main area in which the trees grow are the maritime climates of the tropics. This covers the Caribbean Sea area and Central America, the Pacific and Polynesia, Indonesia and the South China and Philippine Seas, the Indian Ocean and the topical parts of the Atlantic Ocean. It excludes continental tropical Africa. However, the zone does include the coastal zones of Africa, South America, southern Asia and northern Australia. As use of this material for furniture and construction takes off it should provide a boon to the economies of this broad region. This distribution can be seen in the map below – it is obviously a plant that likes a tropical oceanic type climate.
By Niklas Jonsson – This file was derived from: Coconut natural distribution.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
The texture of the wood is beautiful and quite unique consisting of denser black fibres that create its strength durability and light areas. The black fibres seem to run as columns up and down the tree. Lack of branches on the coconut tree mean that there is no knotting in the wood.
The fibres in the image of the chair above can be seen in the raw cut wood in the image below showing how they run vertically up the tree that is that basis of the beautiful grain pattern.
By കാക്കര – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
I will have to look out for more coconut palm wood products in the future.
References:
(1) Coconut Palm, Sustainable Materials http://www.sustainablematerials.org.uk/resource/coconut-palm.html
(2) Coconut, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut
(3) Coconut Timber, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_timber
Some more links on this topic:
General Information on the Coconut Palm
Coconut (Wikipedia)
The Coconut Palm
Furniture
Pacific Green Creates Sustainably Harvested Palmwood Furniture
Coconut timber
Coconut wood: a viable source of building material
Coconut wood: A viable substitute for hardwood
Coconuts and Palm Lumber
What Is Palm Tree Wood Used For?
Coconut Wood, a sustainable material for our kitchen
Ecopalm coconut palm wood
Coconut Palm Flooring: A Beautiful, Eco-Friendly Alternative
Palm wood, the new bamboo
Other uses of the coconut palm tree
Coconut
Environmental Benefits Of Coconut Husk
3. The coconut palm
Discovering the Wonders of the Coconut
9 parts of the coconut tree used in Seychelles
Soap Production 0708
Health Benefits of Coconut
Coconutoil.com Talks about the health benefits of coconut oil including incorporating it into foodstuffs.
Coconut Reserach Centre Explores the medical applications of coconut oil.
The end of coconut water? The world’s trendiest nut is under threat of species collapse
Coconut palm
PALMWOOD
Possible ecological damage
Is Your Obsession With Coconuts Harming the Environment?
Coconut palms bring ecological change to tropics, Stanford researchers say
Miscellaneous
Factors Affecting the Coconut Industry from Benefitting the Indigenous Communities of Kilifi District, Kenya
Black Palm
Since having my own house I have always had a Christmas tradition of decorating my tree in the broadest possible range of bright colours. Basically, my colour scheme is every colour possible. This can be seen in the poll owing close up of my tree in a previous year.
Last year I started a new tradition of decorating my mantelpiece in the same multicolored scheme. I tend to put my best ornaments there. The following is this year’s mantelpiece display:
I have built up my collection of ornaments from small selection donated to me by my parents. My colour scheme represents my memory of vivid colour from my early childhood – it was the seventies after all! When I am enjoying a holiday abroad I always like to buy some Christmas ornaments to add to my display. The following is a wider view of my tree from a previous year:
I have tried to categorise some of the ornaments below to tell a bit of a story about how this collection was built up over time.
The first two were from the Christmas tree of my childhood which was the inspiration from my rather broad colour scheme:
The next four were obtained during my first Christmas in my own house. The giraffe was my favourite for many years, but unfortunately was damaged a couple of years ago. There is usually one a year that gets broken during the decorating or put away process.
This one has the colour and texture of an orange. It always reminds me of tales from older relatives who said that they only got an orange as a Christmas present ‘in their day’. I guess this ornament could be viewed as being symbolic of gratitude. [Correction – it wasn’t just an orange that they got, rather it was ‘an apple, an orange and tuppence’!]
The next one evokes childhood memories of a combination of Disney, and the Arabian Nights. Perhaps symbolic of the birth of Christianity in the Middle East.
The following three were bought at Macy’s, New York and creates an American presence in my Christmas.
The next three were from Harrods in London
The next four ornaments came from a shop in Leeds called The Pier. This always had an excellent selection of very tasteful an unique Christmas decorations, like the Chinese lantern design below.
The next three are rather recent purchases from John Lewis.
The next five are rather special and are made from Murano glass. Murano is an island in the Venetian lagoon in Italy that is world famous for its glass making.
The next four ornaments are from southern Italy which makes a lot of ceramic goods. There are made in the spirit of that pottery tradition.
This one is a lemon, a unbiquitous fruit in southern Italy.
This one was bought in the beautiful town of Positano on the spectacular Amalfi coast of Italy.
The next seven decorations were bought in the Christmas Shop in Sorrento.
Next is Humpty Dumpty which was a gift rarther an ornament I got for myself. Like many gifts I love it as it is so unique and has great texture.
Here are some more ornaments in my collection:
Merry Christmas. Got a new camera for Christmas – photography is one of my hobbies. This is a picture of my Christmas tree today, Christmas Day 2015. Another hobby of mine is collecting Christmas baubles as you may have guessed by looking at the tree. When I am on holiday I try to get a unique Christmas decoration from the place I am staying.
cjknowles1972 
