So, on Sunday we went to Ikea to replace Terry’s dead chair, God rest its soul, and also to buy two desks, a filing cabinet, cable-tidiers, two sets of blinds, one of those pull-out trays things for keyboards, and a lamp. Yeah. In fairness, we had planned to buy all of these things: what we hadn’t really planned was to buy them all on a Sunday, and actually? I still don’t know why we did that. I mean, what possessed us? If we’d wanted to put ourselves through HELL, the local lunatic asylum is closer, and we probably wouldn’t have come home from it with a bunch of flat packed furniture that will now have to live in the living room, in its boxes, because, whoops, don’t really have time to put all that together, sorry.
Anyway, we went to Ikea, and God, it was like the seventh circle of hell. (the 5th and 6th circles being, respectively, Asda-Walmart on Christmas Eve and Primark any given Saturday). For a start, there were people crammed into every available space. Seriously, they were hanging from picture frames, stacked neatly on top of the BILLY storage systems, spilling out of the MALM chests of drawers… It reminded me of those shows you used to get in the 80s where a man in a brightly coloured sweater would “hilariously” see how many people he could squeeze into a telephone box, or shoehorn into a Mini Cooper. It was JUST LIKE THAT.
Just to add to the fun, each person (Terry and I excepted) appeared to have been issued with a screaming child upon entrance and instructed not, under any circumstances, to allow silly things like other people’s inconvenience stop them from using their giant pushchairs to block the aisles, because seriously, we can all just stand and wait while you examine that set of shelves in minute detail, no, really, don’t mind us! They were all also doing that thing where they spread out across an aisle and then walk reeeeaaaallllly, reallllly, slllooooowwwwllllly, as if out for a pleasant stroll. GOD.
Well, we got all of our stuff and somehow managed to cram it into the car, and drove home with me stuck to the inside of the window like one of those cuddly “window toys” people get. (WHY?) 
The idea now is to use it all to redecorate the spare bedroom office, in a bid to make it look a little more like an office, and less like, well, a spare bedroom with two computer desks crammed into it. Obviously, though, once we got the stuff home we just piled it into the living room then left it. I mean, it’s nice to buy this stuff, but you don’t seriously expect us to put it all together, do you? No, I think what we’ll probably do instead is, we’ll buy a brand new house, one that already has all the stuff inside it. And we will never, ever go back to Ikea on a Sunday. You shouldn’t go either, it’s not good for you.
