Saga by Ikea

No it's not a new wardrobe organiser or colander I'm referring to, I am actually talking about the ongoing saga of our new bed. First off, I bought a bed frame about 18 months ago from Ikea which has been getting stored in my parent's cellar until I took it over to Alasdair's this week ready for our new good quality, half price, Argos mattress to arrive.

First problem was that there was no midframe included with the bed frame meaning there was nothing to rest the wooden slats on. So we went out to Ikea on Tuesday evening to buy one. Not entirely convinced that the slats would just balance on top of the midframe safely we asked one of their staff for advice and got the crappiest replies ever, "Yeah it works" and "No-one else has a problem with it"! Cheers mate, you're really earning your wage there.

Incidentally, on the way back from Ikea on that occasion some stupid old woman almost hit us head on as she came round a blind corner on the wrong side of the road. Luckily I knew that sometimes huge lorries have to use the middle of the road to turn so had slowed right down but the speed she was going at meant it was still a skidding halt from both of us. My reaction: Phew, that could've been game over. Alasdair's reaction: Ya f&%($^g, s£@&*d-l**6$^g, b(&%h-f@£@d c*w! Nice and calm as always then.

So we get back to Alasdair's, assemble the bed, without so much as a raised eyebrow never mind a raised voice (I think we were both still grateful to be alive), put the old mattress on top for one last night and instantly realise that the Ikea double bed is bigger than the double mattress.

And not just a little bit bigger either. Oh no, a whopping 5cm all the way round. 5cm may not sound like much but it's definitely enough to slip down the edge in the middle of the night, bang your shoulder and leave a bruise. Trust me.

So the nice man from Argos arrived on Wednesday morning with our new good quality, half price, Argos mattress which we had to return straight away. Only he can't take it back because he only does deliveries and doesn't have any collection paperwork. Someone else will have to come to collect it. A bit annoying but their returns dept arranged a collection no problem.

So it was back to Ikea again on Wednesday night to look for an Ikea sized double mattress which actually cost us £40 less than our good quality, half price, Argos mattress but then they charged us £35 to deliver it. £35! It's only 3 miles down the road! Apparently it costs £35 for anything up to 30 items. We also bought a couple of pillow cases which I was tempted to add to the delivery just to split the cost a bit but we decided that might be being just a touch petty.

So Alasdair's waiting in today for the Ikea mattress to be delivered then again tomorrow for the good quality, half price, Argos mattress to be collected.

I'm really not looking forward to replacing the sofa now!