Several Ming dynasties ago, but in fact on Monday 3rd March this year, almost as soon as a I moved to Brighton I visited Ikea in Croydon on my own, got into a muddle about what bits I needed to pile on my cart in the basement to correspond to the displays upstairs... and later beat myself up.
I must have written about it, because when I typed IKEA into the tiltle line just now the title Wizard (yes?) suggested ": you want to know?"
At that time I thought getting sorted down here would take aproximately 3 weeks.
Well, more than the three months later, I'm nearing the finishing line. And with my polish David, I visited Ikea again. It was so much more relaxed to go through the whole process with someone else (and probably I'm more relaxed anyway). Even when a major part was missing in the basement, it didn't feel as if civilized life was about to cease to function (although perhaps employing "Ikea" and "civilized life" in the same sentence is a logical mistake)
Being Monday morning there were fewer customers and the staff were more approachable. David's English is not brilliant and so he left the approaching to me. I got into a convoluted conversation with an assistant about how to buy one bit of a single bed without the other - when he suddenly interrupted in Polish, and the matter was soon settled. He had spotted she had a badge with a Polish name on it, the same as his girlfriend's.
