Saturday 7 July 2012

Ikea adventures

We went to Ikea the other day, our aim to get the 15 year old a mirror for her bedroom, so off we set to buy said mirror,promising that that is all we would buy this time, that we would just go there, get what we wanted, maybe have a cup of coffee and then go.........Oh, how foolish was I to think this!

You've got to give the guys at Ikea their due they are geniuses, first they herd you around the entire store with their clever arrow system and god help you if you deviate away from it, you may never be seen again! seriously, I met an old couple who had been there since trying to furnish their first home they deviated away from the arrows and they have quite happily raised a family there! Seriously though it is a bit of a nightmare.

Then just as you have lost the will to live by being herded round and absent mindedly picking up all those items that you just didn't realise how much you needed, there it is....the oasis that Is the Ikea restaurant!! Oh and if you think you can escape with just a coffee when you take the kids....wrong!! 3 cups of coffee, 15 meatballs and a daim cake later we feel like maybe we can go on and find that mirror and we do, we also buy a laundry basket, a notebook, 4 picture frames, a cable tidy, some straws and a stuffed carrot! Then after negotiating our way through the strangest till system in the world you find yourself at the food market and end up coming home with crisp bread, pickled herring, elk sausages and cakes! See, genius and of course the kids have to have an ice cream as well!

And then here's where it gets interesting we get to the car and the bloody mirror won't fit in! Seriously outside the store this thing seemed to quadruple in size so we stand there, we look at it, we look at the car, we look at the kids and try to decide which to leave behind!

I suggest taking the mirror back and getting one from somewhere else, this causes an almost meltdown by 15 year old and her dad, who apparently didn't come all this bloody way to get herded round a store, spend a fortune then not come home with the thing that we went there for!

We try their helpful home delivery service, turns out that it costs the same price as the mirror to have the damn thing delivered! I kid you not!

Then it is decided that he will go home with the mirror and one daughter while I and the other 2 wait in the restaurant! It's a 1 and a half hour round trip from Ikea to our house and back, I am not impressed! But off we go to be herded around again until we get to the restaurant and this time the 18 year old and I have coffee and cake while the little one has fish and chips and cake which of course she doesn't eat because she's still full from meatballs! And of course we end up buying yet more stuff we need, this time a little tea set, another laundry basket and some fairy lights! Just the essentials!

What was supposed to be a straight forward shopping trip turned into a 6 hour adventure and don't get me wrong I love Ikea, I really do but after this particular visit I think it will be a while until I build up the courage to go back there!

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