Texts and Rugs and Cinnamon Rolls

Gosh chums - where has the summer gone?  Not having been away (saving ourselves for a big holiday in October) I seem to have had very little R 'n R and a great deal of driving miles and miles and doing things for others and not much for myself.  There's been lots going on - we celebrated son's graduation with a very creditable 2:1 and his new job which he will start at the end of this month.  My mum turned 90. NINETY!  Amazing - especially considering some of her lifestyle choices. Ahem.

I have had a birthday (although not a significant one) and daughter has turned feral and has hardly been seen.  I wrote about her Ayia Napa activities here, following which she was home for a week before taking off again - back to Greece for a spot of island hopping with her two best friends. Nice to be rich, huh?  She got back at midnight the day before her A level results came out.  Having heard all about the holiday, we got to sleep at 2am and I was woken by her jumping on my bed at 7.30 shrieking "I got in! I got in!"  so, although we had no idea of her grades at that point, we knew that her first choice Uni had pushed the 'yes' button and she is onto her chosen Journalism course. Of course we're thrilled for her.  And for ourselves.  There's no doubt that we will miss her madly but, to be frank dear reader, if she stayed at home, one of us would die.  And anyone else who has lived with a teenage girl will know what I mean by that!

Which leads me on to the topic of this post.  Ah yes - a visit to Ikea was deemed necessary to stock her up with requisites for the great departure in a couple of weeks' time.  Naturally, she had been out the night before and was a wraith at 10am when I woke her.  It took almost 2 hours to get her out of the house, via some "like, really urgent" phone calls to a friend and friend's mother which involved a degree of arse covering on behalf of the friend and which I chose not to ask too closely about.

We live roughly half way between two branches of the Swedish superstore so we had the enviable choice of driving to the shithole that is Wembley or the shithole that is Croydon.  Whoop, whoop.  Several hours of crawling round motorways, dual carriageways and gyratory systems later, we landed up in the gorgeous environs of Wembley. Famous for its stadium and, er, its stadium.

Naturally, Ikea was mobbed - mainly by stressed-looking women and bored-looking 18 year olds whose answer to every question was the same.

Mother: Will you need cups and plates or are they provided?
Teen: Dunno
Mother:  Shall we get some of these towels?
Teen: Dunno
Mother:  Would you like one of those nice rugs?
Teen: Dunno
and on and on and on.  My own child seemed to have mastered the art of shopping with one hand whilst texting non stop with the other, pausing only to complain that "there is like NO signal down here".

I'm certain they pump something into the air in Ikea stores.  Why else would I ALWAYS find myself unable to resist about fifty quids' worth of tat?  Why do I trot round the Marketplace grabbing fistfuls of paper napkins, yet more glasses, mugs, kitchen knives, plants, and CANDLES, sodding stinking CANDLES that I could well do without?  It drives the Shah insane and I can understand why.

Yesterday, I exited £183 lighter.  A hundred and eighty three quid! FFS! And that was spent on what?  Well, it was spent on this:-

Doesn't look like much but doesn't everyone need two sets of fairy lights and a butterfly picture?

In the queue to pay, we got chatting to another lady whose daughter crossly accused her mother of not loving her as much as I love my girl on the grounds that I had bought so much more stuff.  I glumly suggested that she should take lessons in mother-conning from my daughter and the pair of them sniggered complicitly.

To add final insult to injury, it seems that Ikea no longer sells packets of cinnamon rolls, beloved of both children for years.  It's all the excuse I need not to go back for a very long time....

Coming live from your roving reporter

Stand by your beds, faithful readers and students of Shahism (as opposed to Shamanism which is another discipline altogether) and prepare to feast your eyes.  The Shah is about to make his pictorial début on my humble bloggette.  Allow me to explain...


The way DIY works in our house normally goes something like this:-
I have a bright (DIY) idea.
I transmit this bright (DIY) idea to the Shah.
The Shah rolls his eyes and sighs heavily.
Several days or weeks later, I remind the Shah about the DIY.
The Shah rolls his eyes, sighs heavily and goes back to whatever it was he was doing.  Nothing, usually.
Several days or weeks later, I remind the Shah about the DIY again.  I am aware that my voice is taking on a slightly whiny tone.
The Shah rolls his eyes, sighs heavily and mentions the 'n' word.  No not that one - Nagging.  Then just to be sure, he feigns physical injury (known as "ooh me back, ooh me legs" etc)
I whine a bit more. And nag.  And nag.
Ultimately, the Shah flies into a rage and careers into the garage, emerging with a fistful of rusty nails and a bent screwdriver.  He then attacks the DIY project in the manner of a bull in a Denby shop and wonders why a) it all goes horribly wrong and b) the whole family is laughing hysterically.


Right now, the Shah is doing something useful.  He is attempting to reconfigure TD's desk and "study" area.  I use the inverted commas advisedly - if there is a GCSE in YouTube makeup videos, she will get 10 A*s.


However, the Shah is being a good dad and is currently trying to make one table the same height as another by virtue of its lovely, telescopic Ikea legs (you see, Swedish Superstore, you have your uses).  It is not going well.  It goes a hell of a lot worse when the Shah first of all bangs his head hard and then gets stuck under the table, rearing up with it on his back like a giant turtle with a white Ikea shell.


Alerted by the sound effects and language most foul, TD and I go to investigate his distress.  Unfortunately, our solidarity is mistaken for hilarity and the Shah waves at us like this:-

Possibly he means that he will only be another two minutes?

The Bad, the Bad and er,Badder...

OmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigodOmigod.... This was the sum total of the conversation in the aftermath of the great X Factor Tour night.  Actually, that's a lie because it moved on shortly after that to a chorus of "Harry Styles SMILED at me, Matt Cardle blew us a kiss, they're all so much fitter in real life, we saw loads of people we knew there and it was just BRILLIANT!  OmigodOmigodOmigod" etc etc.


They had a better night than me and the Shah.  I eventually made it to Ikea (damn you, Wembley one way systems and the North Circular Road), expecting a nice quiet visit, a trot round the Market Place and a rendezvous with His Lordship.  The car park was mobbed.  It was worse than the first day of the sales.  Trying to find a parking space was a bloody nightmare because not only were there none, there were several dozen drunken, spaced out teenagers using the place as a skate park and in grievous danger of being mown down by a passing car too laden with Swedish tat for its driver to be able to see through more than three square inches of windscreen.


Inside, it was like the 7th circle of hell.  Where do the good burghers of Wembley go for their Saturday night entertainment?  Why, Ikea of course!  Sad bastards.  Wild-eyed children, way past the point of exhaustion, rampaged around the room sets, leaping out of wardrobes and hurling them selves off sofas while their parents affected selective blindness and deafness and ignored the little gits.  There was a huge queue in the cafe and downstairs in the Market Place, dead-eyed women pushed monstrous buggies around teetering pyramids of glassware and china, missing them by millimetres.  It took me ages to realise that I had no mobile signal there so the Shah, by the time he found me, was in a right royal strop.  One that was not appeased by the offer of fish and chips.  Hey - we know how to live on a Saturday night....


In the Market Place, I think they pump strange chemicals into the air.  If not, why is everyone buying all the crap that is on offer as if their lives depended upon it?  I suffered the irresistible urge to buy 480 picture frames, several dozen duvet covers and a print of Charlie Chaplin.  I hate Charlie Chaplin.  I hate Ikea and, most of all, I hate Wembley.


The traffic outside Wembley Arena was horrendous.  We got home at midnight.  I'm knackered, the Shah is knackered and worst of all, the teenage One Direction fan has found the ideal desk for her bedroom. 


Guess where?                    aaaaaaaaaaaagh.

The Good the Bad and the Swedish

This week has divided itself up quite dramatically.  There has been good, there has been bad and there will be Swedish.  Let me elaborate.


Today is Saturday, a day when (by rights) I should be putting my feet up and recovering from the week. (GOOD).  But No.  For I am a mother and a mother's place is a) in the wrong and b) behind the wheel and I am going to be driving to the loveliness that is Wembley tonight to escort* my darling daughter and her best friend to the X Factor Tour.  This is BAD.


*(Well, when I say escort, I mean turf them out of a moving car somewhere near the Arena and bugger off sharpish.)


The arrangements were only finalised this morning and, up until then, the Shah was wearing the smug expression of one who thinks he is Off The Hook.  Ha ha!  Silly Shah!


He has already announced earlier in the week that he will be playing Hockey miles away up the M40 so, oh dear, he won't get back in time to accompany me to North London.  So I suggest that he might like to come and join me there as the A40 goes practically past the front door of Wembley Arena.  He agrees readily and I know why.  Wembley is full of curry houses and the Shah (who always has one if not both eyes on his stomach) is anticipating a nice nosebagging experience whilst the girls are busy listening to 

One Direction *scream* 

Aiden Grimshaw *shriek* 

and er, Wagner *silence*.


So, where shall I meet you? he asks all innocent, the poor sap.  This is when I deliver my killer blow with two words.


"IN IKEA".


The resulting howl of "I've been done up like a kipper!" emitted by the Shah could probably be heard in Wembley but he is now in the horns of a dilemma.  He could "forget" and go straight home from the match.  However, this would be a risky strategy on many fronts:-


1.  He would incur my wrath and 'vengeance will be mine' sayeth the wife.
2.  He would have to cook for himself.  Too lazy.
3.  He would have zero control over how much money I am spending in Ikea and the resulting stress would ruin his evening.


So this is GOOD.


If there is anything exciting to report from our excursion I will do so tomorrow.


God Almighty - is this what my life has come to?  I have to look forward to wasting a couple of hours on an enforced visit to a Swedish Emporium and dangle that as a carrot to entice my readership.....*sigh*   Sorry.