A Long Way for a Bookcase...

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend - it was very chill and bitter here all weekend although today, it's been gloriously sunny. So much so, I caught this picture (just) as the sun went down this afternoon across a housing estate I pass on the way home.

Men should always keep their trap shut when they have bright ideas. Mine was to go and visit IKEA on Saturday having failed to find a bookcase at a reasonable price in local shops or on the Internet. I've never been to an IKEA shop in my life. I thought it was a good idea at the time but the hyper-shop was over an hour away on the motorway along the M62 corridor around the Leeds area. So off we toddled.


The shop was huge - my colleagues who are all regular attenders warned me that it was large and you followed a path with arrows. That all seemed to work fine and we spotted our bookcase fairly early on for about a fifth of the price it would have cost me in 'Next Home.' However, my other half insisted that we go round the whole shop 'you never know what we might see.' Well an hour later, I was just about fed up so I insisted on going to the canteen which was very nice (lovely bun) - however we didn't have the meatballs that everyone recommended.

Then we had to get three bloomin' large heavy containers with our bookcase and get it to the car. I asked how much it would cost to get it delivered and because we were outside the catchment area, we would be £100 poorer. So we managed to get it in the car, just and arrived home with most of the day gone.

Overall, apart from not being very interested in shopping in IKEA, I was impressed with the scale, variety and price of the stuff there. It's a shame that there wasn't a shop closer to me. I guess when it comes to kitting my lads out if and when they decide to move out, that would be a great and economic place to do it.

Now Sunday was not so successful, in that, while it was a relaxing day, I smashed a cup when I knocked it off the kitchen work surface onto the tiled floor and then I spilt a whole cup of steaming hot cappuccino on my keyboard. The third thing ('to go wrong' as the saying goes), thank goodness never materialised, but it cost me for my clumsiness, £40 for a new keyboard and mouse. Not happy.

The day however finished well with a viewing of Iron Man 2 on DVD that my son had bought a few days ago. Rollicking entertainment, a little dark in places, lots of whizz bangs and action, something we didn't have to think too hard about.

I hope you have a great and successful week.

Don't forget to say 'White Rabbit' three times for luck tomorrow morning. Goodbye January.

Chat soon

ta-ra.