Sunday, October 02, 2005
IKEA Strikes Back
I slept a little longer than I intended and when I got up my body was aching from yesterday's exertions. Gail found it all hilarious that one trip up Calton Hill would leave me in such a bad way - and she's probably right. I'm in a bad way fitness-wise and so the cross-trainer we've just bought for the garage may be just the thing I need to start getting back into shape.
I had just given the radiator it's second undercoat when Gail suggested a trip to IKEA - a place I hate more than anywhere else I can think of on the British Isles. She persuaded me, of course, with her usual tactics and so off we went to the other side of Edinburgh. The reason for the trip was essentially so I could get wall brackets for the shelves we already had in the garage that I wanted to erect in my office.
IKEA is a box in a field with its own wee traffic lane to get into. Shepherded through the gates and into the flow of trolleys and shoppers we went, and soon I felt just like one of the millions of other robots. It was almost as bad as work. We toured the showrooms looking at kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms for when we renovate in the future and spent hours looking for ideas than anything tangible.
We got some things for the kitchen; a large Yukka plant for the conservatory and I got a whiteboard for the office and a small plant. I want a framed picture for the large wall but nothing took my fancy. The shelf brackets they had weren't all that nice so we moved on to B&Q. I bought some bits and bobs and a pot for the Yukka plant but the shelf brackets were significantly more expensive. So expensive in fact, it was cheaper to buy a shelf set and construct it from scratch. Which I did. Four shelves in a curved formation, on which I will put the books that have most meaning to me and maybe something tasteful.
There was a quick stop in the supermarket to get some ingredients for a Mexican dish I wanted to make for dinner before finally, after five hours of shopping, we headed home - with just about everything we didn't go out for in the first place.
When we got in I made chicken fajitas, complete with all the trimmings and sat down to a beautiful, if not very filling meal in the conservatory. Very respectable indeed.
I put together the shelves in the evening and after an extended period filled with mostly sweating and swearing, I finished the job. It will be tomorrow before I can get them onto the wall so I spent the rest of what was left of the night relaxing with my wife. I did get time to do some writing; my GDR plan for October, which I'll post in tomorrow's entry as there are a couple of things I need to check on first before going public with.
I had just given the radiator it's second undercoat when Gail suggested a trip to IKEA - a place I hate more than anywhere else I can think of on the British Isles. She persuaded me, of course, with her usual tactics and so off we went to the other side of Edinburgh. The reason for the trip was essentially so I could get wall brackets for the shelves we already had in the garage that I wanted to erect in my office.
IKEA is a box in a field with its own wee traffic lane to get into. Shepherded through the gates and into the flow of trolleys and shoppers we went, and soon I felt just like one of the millions of other robots. It was almost as bad as work. We toured the showrooms looking at kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms for when we renovate in the future and spent hours looking for ideas than anything tangible.
We got some things for the kitchen; a large Yukka plant for the conservatory and I got a whiteboard for the office and a small plant. I want a framed picture for the large wall but nothing took my fancy. The shelf brackets they had weren't all that nice so we moved on to B&Q. I bought some bits and bobs and a pot for the Yukka plant but the shelf brackets were significantly more expensive. So expensive in fact, it was cheaper to buy a shelf set and construct it from scratch. Which I did. Four shelves in a curved formation, on which I will put the books that have most meaning to me and maybe something tasteful.
There was a quick stop in the supermarket to get some ingredients for a Mexican dish I wanted to make for dinner before finally, after five hours of shopping, we headed home - with just about everything we didn't go out for in the first place.
When we got in I made chicken fajitas, complete with all the trimmings and sat down to a beautiful, if not very filling meal in the conservatory. Very respectable indeed.
I put together the shelves in the evening and after an extended period filled with mostly sweating and swearing, I finished the job. It will be tomorrow before I can get them onto the wall so I spent the rest of what was left of the night relaxing with my wife. I did get time to do some writing; my GDR plan for October, which I'll post in tomorrow's entry as there are a couple of things I need to check on first before going public with.
Colin 6:35 pm