A garden tour for fifty tomorrow, with lunch. So we're all jumping around getting ready for it today (and for days before, in truth).  Parties are a great deadline for getting things done you should have gotten done already anyway.  Like hosing off the terrace, bringing out the chairs, and putting up the market umbrella for the summer.  (Getting it down and into storage for the Winter is its own drama.)
I love the stone table year-round, but I would only want to sit at it (pale-face me) if I can also be in the shade. Bring on the umbrella. That's it, sheathed in its over-the-winter umbrella condom, with black garbage backs for further sealing, with packs of mothballs wafting inside.
Unsheathed but still furled, it's the length of the table: ten feet.
It's a faith-based operation to lift it up and get the pole into the hole in the middle of the table...
...and then hoist the canopy.
Whoops: coil the hose back up.

And there: The terrace is now somewhere to go to, be in, enjoy, not just someplace to look at from the house or from the rest of the gardens.
It's really the umbrella that does the trick: It puts a mild but distinctive roof over the table, and yet leaves the sides open to the breezes and the views. It's the perfect combination of shelter and exposure. Summer? Bring it on.