Thursday, July 15, 2010

 

A trip to the world of Ikea

Well, I had nine hours of sleep.
I certainly must have needed it for my reserves of energy were feeling very low.
And I needed energy to get me through today.
We have been to Ikea.
Ikea at Croydon was built on the site of the old Croydon power station, and the two really tall towers remain as a landmark with the Swedish colours around the top.




I am always happy to go there, but have to admit that it is a one off sort of experience unlike most shopping experiences.
Mind you - what do I know about shopping?
There are people not prepared to put themselves through the Ikea experience, but generally I think it is worth it and nowadays we know the ropes.
But there can be hassles!

We arrived at lunchtime - that was no hassle, that was scrumptious!
I had a chicken tagine with chickpeas and olives and lemon couscous. Bill had a salmon fillet with lots of vegetables and things. We bought slices of a Swedish cake (gluten free) - on offer this week for 50p each. We had unlimited drinks. With an Ikea family card this came to £8.40.


Oh, how I would love another slice of this cake - especially at 50p a time.

Eventually we set off with a list in hand.
We know Ikea - the list is only a guide line.
But I think we have been restrained.

The list had on it - a thick mattress pad (to boost up the comfort of an existing mattress). The new one will go on our bed and we can put the one we already have on the sofa bed that Ashley will be using. Not cheap - but beneficial to those with aching bodies, which both Bill and Ashley suffer with. The next item on the list was for a small table to go in our lounge. And Bill wanted a picture frame for some prints he bought when we were in Wales.

The expensive extra became a chair - and not all that expensive.
You may recall that I insisted that Bill's chair was rejected from our lounge because I didn't like it.
Since then he has been using one of the Ikea best seller chairs that seem to be in almost everybody's houses these days. We perhaps did need an extra chair in the lounge and we looked at others of the same Poang design.

Love this picture I found of a Poang chair on Brighton beach!

Then we found a chair in the sale - very similar to the Poang.
We checked that they had some in stock and were told that there was just one in the warehouse.
Then came hassle!
We rushed as fast as we could on the long trek to the warehouse so that we got this bargain before anybody else.
No chair!

So we went back to the chairs to look again.
Why couldn't we have the one on display?
Bill asked the girl at the computer screen. Ah! She had the chair (in its box) right beside her. It was the last one that Ikea would have and was due to be written off.
So we had it. High backed comfortable chair with foot stool for £69!

So, with chair in the trolley, it was time to set off on the route to the check outs - passing all the small items for every room in the house on the way. Eyes were pulled in all directions, wondering if perhaps this attractive and potentially useful item should be added to the trolley.

Um.....talking of trolleys......I bought one! I have one already that I use at car boot sales. I really didn't need another. But I liked the style of one in the sale and so my new shopping trolley was piled into the Ikea shopping trolley.

Apart from that I was very restrained - I bought a stylish plastic jug, useful in the kitchen for 19p. Just silly things like that.

By that time we were exhausted of course - we needed another cup of tea.
The teas and coffees were free today for Ikea Family card holders.
We had hoped for another slice of the Swedish cake - but it appeared to have all gone.

So we had a bowl of chips to boost up energy. We enjoyed a long sit, looking out of the window as people constantly came and went.

There was just one more bit of shopping to be done. Ikea has a small food shop, selling Swedish products.
I bought a bag of the Swedish meatballs that Ikea is famed for - and the lingonberry jam which always accompanies them.
We bought other jams too - looking forward to the orange and elderflower.
We bought a number of things that took our fancy - and most of all that included bags of salt liquorice.
Now I promise not to over indulge on this - can't be sure of how restrained Ashley will be when he arrives.
And..... we bought a whole big round cake just like the one we had eaten at lunch time.

We had feared that the journey home might be horrendous - rush hour time. But maybe the main rush hour was over, for it was smooth and hassle free - but we were glad we chose the less obvious road home.

Nothing that we have bought is yet in use. Bill has a construction job tomorrow on the chair and the small table - which in fact is a box, so a useful place to dump things.
For now we are just happy to be back in the real world - our own peaceful little home.

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A trip to the world of Ikea
posted by Grandma P on Thursday, July 15, 2010