Getting a Little Wisdom Once upon a time in the 1980s my daughter and I were shmoozing around  our favourite shopping mall, these days unrecognisably upgraded  expanded and so on. A departing pleasure, right by the car park, was  often a circuit of the now vanished David Wang, a shop bursting with   a dazzling array of Asian imports. One small piece of furniture  really grabbed my attention. Made of that bent cane or bamboo, it was  the most charming patio set of a table and two chairs I'd ever  seen: the table was like an elongated lozenge with a glass top and a  handy magazine shelf under the centre; its two comfortable chairs,  with their smart cushions, nested invisibly under the rounded ends.  Through my imagination floated images of a relaxed morning on the  patio with my lover, enjoying coffee and croissants as we shared the  weekend papers, and I contemplated making this lifestyle my very own with just one purchase. However, turning the delectable vision over in my mind I realised it  was pure fantasy: the little chairs were unsuited to my own use, I  could no longer digest a breakfast of coffee and croissants, had no  lover, didn't get the papers, and my patio in those days was not  wheelchair accessible. In an epiphany it struck me how prone we are  to buy for the life we desire rather than the one we have, and that   advertising and marketing are built on that premise. So I got real  and tore myself away from the patio set and its fantasy. Last year I spotted an identical patio set at an auction, and it stirred a delicate nostalgia: that earlier encounter provided a handy bit of wisdom, and for free.   By Hilary Ash January 2006 The picture: Memories of St Petersberg. Watercolour 1946. Design exercise. Edna Jane McKenzie

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