Not Fade Away

Facebook has reminded me that it was a year ago today that I put some wood stain on this bench. At that time, I did wonder how long it would last. Less than a year would appear to be the answer.
To put it into context, we had found an almost full tin of wood stain whilst clearing out the garage in lockdown one. As neither of us remembered buying it, we could only assume it had been in there when we bought the house seventeen years previously!
But it was still liquid and seemed to mix up ok, so I did the fence. A fair bit left after that so I did the gate. By then, I was down to an inch or so in the bottom of the tin, but reckoned that, with a bit of judicious watering down, I could just about do the bench as well. Which was almost correct. About one and a half coats were all that were possible and it literally was scraping the bottom of the barrel by the time I ran out.
And as the bench gets the full force of the sun, wind and - mainly - rain that passes for weather in this part of the world, it is no surprise that it has faded so badly. The fence and the gate aren’t as bad so I can only assume it was diluting the stain that caused the deterioration.
Now that we have the new deck, maybe it’s time to invest in a brand new bench...