Those sneaky buggers at IKEA sent me a voucher for $35 off my next purchase, which weirdly coincided with the youngest wanting a metal chair from IKEA for the verandah of her tiny home.
The voucher arrived last Tuesday, but I didn’t notice it until Saturday morning. I read the fine print and realised it expired next weekend. I am away next weekend.
The more I thought about it, the more urgent my desire became to use the voucher.
Saturday was out of the question because the youngest was at work and couldn’t confirm what chair she wanted.
I was also busy exploring Kirribilli Markets with a friend in the morning, then I headed to DD’s in the afternoon for dinner with friends (delicious crab spaghettini), so the day was a bit jam packed.
On Sunday, DD and I had lunch with our travel agent in Manly. We had a lovely time talking about cruises and breaking our diet that we still haven’t started yet.
As 3pm approached, I explained we had to head off because I needed to collect the dogs from DD’s place, drop them at my place, then drive to IKEA Tempe to use my $35 voucher.
Our travel agent’s husband was a little incredulous and wanted to know how much it would cost in petrol to get to IKEA and back.
Silly man. One does not factor in petrol costs when pursuing a discount.
We hugged them goodbye and drove up to DD’s place. I grabbed the dogs and … three hours later I arrived home again.
Far out! That was a bit nuts.
OK, let me back up a bit … the youngest moved into a tiny home in the middle of Woop Woop about a month ago.
Fortunately I didn’t accidentally buy it, she’s renting it from a local family. It is so tiny that the combined living/bedroom only has space for a bed and a single chair, with a desk tucked into one corner.
The temperature in both the kitchen and bathroom hovers around 3 degrees. The place is pretty much a bedroom with two walk-in fridges attached to it. And you can’t drink the water.
But it has a cute little porch with a koi pond around the edges of it. And since the inside is so small, the youngest is keen to add an outdoor chair to expand the living area.
She wanted an orange IKEA chair, but when I got there is was very, very orange. I am a big orange fan, it’s one of my favourite colours, but this shade was not ideal …
I sent a pic to the youngest hoping she’d check her phone. Sometimes my messages go unanswered for days, which is very unhelpful when I’m trying to log into the Optus account that I pay, but is linked to her phone number. Those four digit codes expire after 10 minutes and hearing back from the youngest 10 hours later is no use at all.
The youngest got back to me straight away because there was free stuff involved and agreed that the chair was very orange. She said:
So I got the black one.
I may also have found a few other small things at IKEA that I didn’t really need but had to have. However, I turned away from IKEA meatballs for dinner because I felt too guilty about the duck spring rolls and french fries I’d eaten at lunch.
It was sunset when I arrived at IKEA (very romantic) and pitch black when I left. Fortunately the route between my place and IKEA is well-travelled path, as my failing night vision means I am very good at getting lost after dark.
And now it’s Monday again. Already. Way too soon. Bugger off Monday.
How was your weekend?
PS It wasn’t all spend, spend, spend. DD is the local drop-off point for electronics recycling a few times a year and a lovely old couple brought over a giant laptop in a brand new HP laptop bag. Score! My old one was looking very decrepit from carrying hundreds of leaky lunches to work over the years.
Song of the day: Supertramp “The long way home”
housegoeshome 
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