Saturday Shopping

We went to Tesco's  at Kingston shopping on Saturday morning. Fortunately we had the sense to go early and as a result it wasn't too busy. There weren't too many people and the queue at the checkout was relatively free, so we got in and out easily.

When we got home we unloaded the car and then decided to go to IKEA, as Carol wanted to get a breakfast bar for the kitchen and two stools. We haven't had a decent table to sit at to have meals in the kitchen. We generally eat our meals on our laps in front of the television. It took some while to decide what sort of table we should have. You can select the type of top you want and then the legs and construct it yourself, which is easy enough as the table I am currently sitting at which has the iMac on it is constructed like that and came from IKEA. The type of table Carol wanted was outside our budget and the legs, rather like a cross between a trestle and an artist's easel, wasn't in stock, so we chose telescopic legs made of metal. We then had to choose a couple of bar stools to use at the breakfast bar, and couldn't decide whether to have them with or without backs. We eventually chose stools with backs, and folded.  We also bought some magazine racks as I want to store my copies of BBC History Magazine in them and so tidy the book shelves in the sitting room. We also got a hanging device to put on the back of the bedroom door. It seems incredible to me that the owner's of this house never put hooks on the back of any of the doors so there is nowhere to hang coats, dressing gowns and other items, so this seemed a good alternative to actually screwing hooks into the doors.

Anyone who has shopped in IKEA will be familiar with the layout of these stores, and how you have to trail through all the displays to find what you want. You have to remember to write down the item number you wish to purchase and then go to the warehouse area and find that item, having written down the aisle number and location number. It can then be extremely frustrating when you eventually get to the location to find a label which says 'currently out of stock.' We didn't find the stools we wanted in the location so choose the folding stools with backs. On getting them home I found it incredibly time consuming removing the plastic wrapping on them. Why do they need to be so over-wrapped? Then, having removed all this plastic wrapping, you discover that one part, the footrest, has to be attached seperately. Why? For what earthly reason do they make a stool, which is folding and about 95% pre-assembled, and then leave this bit unconnected to the rest of the stool? There is a leaflet showing how to screw it together, with a key gadget to tighten the screws, but why is this one bit not attached to the stool already when you buy it?

We watched the semi-finals of "Strictly Come Dancing" on television this evening and had a really tasty sweet and sour chicken meal which Carol cooked afterwards.