The Occasional Sunday Ritual Of Going To IKEA....Starring A Swivel Chair

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Now that regular churchgoing is a thing of the past. The Sunday pastime that comes closest to it is the visit to the Swedish furniture giant IKEA. Occasionally we pay homage as a family to the store that sells furniture we build ourselves and yesterday was just such a day.

As I've mentioned on this blog before. I'm not anti-IKEA as such. I like it when they produce furniture with clean Scandinavian lines. The other half of IKEA? The furniture that looks like the designers were on drugs? Not so much.

We were there to get a swivel chair and a desk for daughter. And immediately as we entered she and I played the well known game of insulting each other using the names of IKEA furniture.

Examples included:

"You no good Skrigg".

"You have a Tidafors for a brain"

"You look as ugly as a dying Vejmon" (That was my daughter to me)

Wife didn't really get involved until she told us to stop taking the Micke. That being the desk we eventually picked but couldn't take on the day as it was too big for my mighty Kia Picanto to take.

But we did pick the swivel chair. Or rather two pieces of the swivel chair. The base bit with the all importnant wheels (the Sporren) and the chair itself  (the Vasberg).

As in:

"Do you have the Vasbergs with the Sporren?"

"No it's just the way I walk".

So we took it back to the apartment and whilst wife/daughter had to go out again it was my responsibility to put this swivel chair. This I did slowly and completed it. I carried it by the seat.....only to have the Sporren drop from the Vasberg and almost crash onto my feet.

Thankfully it missed and I sorted the situation out before wife/daughter were able to come back and laugh at the old Vejmon.

It moves up and down, it swivels, it glides.

I did this.....I Know You're Impressed

Until the next time.

Non Adventures In Time,Space And Ikea

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well picture the scene. It's Sunday midday. The preferred option for the day was a trip to Tenby but forecast rain (which thankfully did come. There would have been no end of nagging had that not happened.Was just willing for the downpour) meant that was a no-no. Cardiff was also a non starter, given that a lot of it was to be shut off for the final of the Tour of Britain.

So there were three options:

1) We just go to the nearby village of Sully for lunch and then slump Sunday afternoon style on the sofas.

2) Go to Barry Island and watch fascinatingly at the sights of a seaside town in unseaside weather.

3) Go to IKEA, have lunch and then get some fabric for daughter's textile lessons at school. She had a sewing machine for her birthday and for me has shown surprising interest. Surprising in the sense that she definitely does not get that from me.

If you consider it was me vs mother/wife/daughter I think you can work out which option won.

I take The Edge Of Science by Alan Baker to read whilst the ladies are doing their thing. A decision which is treated with contempt across the generations. I don't care. The book is brought.

We arrive in the blue and yellow furniture powerhouse and the first thing to do is to have lunch. I know from the signs immiedietly what I want. Vegetable meatballs. The ladies hadn't a clue what they wanted. So I commandeered and sat by a table whilst they went . There I finished the book off.

(A quick aside something I haven't told mother/wife/daughter is that I've decided to gradually eat more vegetarian meals. I won't be an out and out veggie, if only because a bacon sandwich can seduce me in the same way chocolate does women. But still I've become after all these years now convinced that it will be good for me, so I'll whittle it down)

I wish I could say it was enjoyable, but alas. With the byline "How Did The Universe Begin and how will it end?" You would expect this to have been written by Professor Alan Baker, Doctor Alan Baker, Astro Geophysist Alan Baker NBA,MLB,NFL but alas no. Just Alan Baker with no letters around his name other than Mr. What's worse however is that he seems unable to use letters to form a readable book. It was one of those books that dull the brain almost instantaneously. It was only able to slow time as you wished you could finish it quicker.

Chapters like Are We The Extraterrestials?  Riddles of the universe and The End Of All Things should be dealt with in separate books not in chapters of a few pages each. It was, it has to be said, the most pointless tome I have read in a long while.

But it's finished. I mention to the ladies that it wasn't a good book. Wasn't given a sympathetic response.

"Perhaps you should have just looked around and seen the real world " said the wife.

Really? Such as the couple on the table opposite with the young girl with a bib marked "Daddy's Princess on it. And true to form acted like a spoilt brat throwing food and drink to the floor. Or the table on the right, where a woman was feeding her child, a boy younger than the brat nearby. Both mothers were young and pretty, both men were young but had the sort of look that suggested that whilst family life might have been an intention it was too soon than they'd expected.

So I could say to my wife that I had noticed. If it wasn't for the fact that they were still there.....and they were bigger than me.

Once the food was finished we did the wander round. Daughter got her fabric, mother got a vase, wife got a few things and of course I got nothing....except.....

In my status as middle aged I present

Slippers

And at last my biggest bugbear is resolved. I present you with my favourite mug, from IKEA, which I keep even though it's slightly chipped.

I know you're impressed

Now I like this mug because it looks continental but is big enough to hold a proper cup of tea. However every time I've tried to get another one like this for some reason the handle is only big enough for one finger to fit in. Making it awkward.....until now.

Middle Aged Problem Now Solved

So I suppose I shouldn't complain about this Sunday afternoon at IKEA

Until the next time.