Of Shambolic Shopping May 28, 2008
Posted by Jen in : Domestic Doings, Journal , trackbackI don’t even know why I thought it a good idea. Last time lovely bf and me ventured to Ikea, we didn’t speak for an entire week.
Now and again though, I get this urge. I think I’m bored with the chickens and fields and wellies. I think I want to be a bit metropolitan. Reader, I don’t know what came over me but yesterday I went to Bluewater. Gawd.
There are several reasons I should not go to such places:
1. I am very crap at driving on motorways. When I learnt to drive in Jersey, there was none of this multiple choice of lane. No lurching, heaving lorries to squish my scaredyness until squeaks pop out of my mouth. If you drive too far or too fast in Jersey, you drop off the edge. Infinitely preferable method of dying to motorways.
2. I don’t like shopping. I am no good at it. I get bored after 20 minutes and decide that I will do the shopping after a jolly good lunch and some fortification of the vino-related type.
3. I am quite easily swayed. Self-control, in my book, is something to do with choosing to wear concrete pants and steel bras.
But, I had a foolproof plan. Ikea first, for the compulsory purchase of bookshelves and shoe racks. Then Bluewater, where I would single-mindedly hunt down a new pair of glasses as my lenses have mysteriously become so scratched that I can barely see. And no, it’s not like when I picked my Clarks school shoes apart with a compass point because I’d wanted some from FreemanHardyWillis. I honestly don’t know how they became scraped just as I’d gone off them. No, really.
Lovely bf had somehow been persuaded that this would be tolerable, if not fun.
‘Maybe we should just go to Bluewater,’ I ventured en route. ‘We can order the furniture online.’
Lovely bf mumbled something at the hard shoulder. It sounded a bit like ‘oh, for fuck’s sake’ but he’d been instructed to wear his happy face and the words weren’t coming out clearly through his gritted teeth.
I’ll cut a long story short. I still can’t see; the joy of specs was shortlived. Lunch at Loch Fyne was good though. Somehow or other, I came home with a fruit bowl and an SLR camera, having become a little overexcited about an idea for a book: a photo and haiku to mark every day for a year. Lovely bf was a trifle disappointed with his purchase of some headache tablets.
Four hours of driving, four hundred quid and eight hours of my life later I was broke and still blind. Oh dear. Perhaps I need more practice?
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It took me months in 2000 to get round to going shopping for new glasses. And two friends going with me.
My 8 year old glasses are scratched to shit now. I really have to buy some new ones, but I resent spending money on glasses when I spend £13 a month on contacts. Stupid, as it means that if I ever can’t wear my lenses for any reason I can’t drive. My glasses are like 3 dioptres too weak.
Anyway, that is all irrelevant. I am terrible at shopping too. Do you want to form some kind of support group??
Oooh - nice camera! You’ll have fun with that. :o)
I’m with you on the shopping. I have no patience for it. And I find I’m getting more and more that way as I get older.
I lost my prescription sunglasses on holiday in LA. One minute they were there. The next vanished. Oops…
A book of 265 haiga? That’d be nice, if expensive.
I have a couple of daily haiku books on my website.
There are days when lovely bf’s should be paid overtime, or danger money.
Good camera, though. Did you buy some groovy lens to go with it?
Captain’s rule #17: Never go shopping with women.
Otherwise you might get that dreaded question: Which one do you prefer, the red or the black?
There is no right answer. The only solution is to kill yourself.
Very nice camera.
I have to go shopping today, with the 3 kiddies.
And I am in a grumpy mood, before I start.
Blaaaaaah.
x
I like your book idea. I’ve given up doing any shopping with my fella in tow as he regresses to a twelve year old. Do women still ask their partners Captain Black’s question? I thought it went out with the ark
B - a support group sounds marvellous. Shopping is more irritating than specatacles. I am too lazy to wear contact lenses and seem almost as blind with them as without. I can still find my way to the wine though which is lucky really.
Nez - you’re the last person I should confess this to but, I am so inept with my new camera, I couldn’t even get the strap attached. Sigh.
Rachel - I rather like the idea of charting a whole year through a simple photo and haiku, even if it’s just a personal project. It would be good to look back on. Am coming to check out the books you mention now. I think I bought a book of your haiku or downloaded it? Or am I dreaming?
Bobo - Danger money, now there’s a thought. Sounds expensive though. Maybe I could just buy him some body armour?
Cap’n Black - ‘Darling, you deserve both’ is the obvious answer. Honestly, men!
Caroline - Luckily, my children don’t like shopping or being seen in public with me. It’s something I like to encourage.
Yvonne - Lovely bf finally gave up and installed himself on a £350 leather beanbag in the middle of the John Lewis furniture department, got his book out and read for half an hour while I wandered about looking at things I didn’t want to buy. I think people thought he was a mental? Women still ask their menfolk such things. It’s something else to argue about, isn’t it?
Poor bf. No wonder he needed headache tablets!
Jen - worry not. I had not a clue how to use my DSLR camera (purchased last August) until I went on my digital photography course this January and pennies started dropping. I found the following book quite useful too if it’s any help: “The book of digital photography - everything you need to know from beginner to pro” by Chris George
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Digital-Photography-Chris-George/dp/1904705855
Helen - Perhaps I should buy his headache tablets wholesale?
Nez - Oh, you star, thanks for the tip. Will away to Amazon forthwith. I’m sure half the trouble is that the DSLR just looks so much more scary than the compact (also new in May!) even though that has loads of buttons and manual settings too. The whole photography is utterly compulsive though - I’m even planning my weekends around potential photo ops! Madness - I really must combine it with writing somehow.
I don’t mind going to Ikea….actually, that’s not true…..I don’t mind walking around the nice bit looking at all the furniture - I turn into a grumpy mad woman when I actually have to attempt to collect the items from the warehouse bit. OMG that really is a little slice of hell!! Chris used to play the theme music from the Omen in the car whenever we went to Ikea!!
Have fun with your new toy
C x
I used to love going to Ikea and imagining I too could have an organised house. It never happened though and I haven’t been for years.
I prefer your sort of shopping trip. A good lunch and a couple of ‘essential’ purchases:-)
Love Bob’s chart!
Oh I hate shopping all that shuffling round makes your back ache and Ikea is cunningly designed so I loose all sense of direction and purpose. I waste hours of my life all for some tealights and a new dog blanket. Shopping on line would be the answer if only they could make it materialise there and then in your living room.
Ikea? What were you think of? I can’t even mention that place to the pirate without him running out of the room shouting ‘No, no, never again!’ Next time make it somewhere more local, park lovely b/f outside Ann Summers with an ice cream, while you order expensive bookcase in John Lewis. Because you’ re worth it.
Ikea has to be the worst shopping experience known to woman! After a visit, I vow never to return, but like childbirth, I always forget just quite how bad it is.
Still, a fruit bowl, that was a result!
Carol - Yeah, it’s mean how they lure you into a false sense of joy before you have to start doing battle with those whopping great trolleys and discover that they haven’t got any of the stuff you’ve written down with your natty little pencil. That sinking feeling as you stand for 3 hours at the till with all the knick-knacks that have mysteriously added up to £250 even you only bought them because they were ’so cheap’ and knowing you’ve got to do it all again sine you still haven’t got what you originally went for…
Lane - perhaps we’re just not the ‘organised’ type? If I can’t actually sort myself out to get to Ikea without being swayed, there’s no hope for tidiness at home. Still, shoes in rows on racks would be quite something if the Queen put in a surprise appearance.
Breezy - But with shopping online, you can’t sit on a sofa in the middle of the store and let a crowd of people watch as you have a proper ‘at home’ argument.
Fiona - Sadly, I live in t’middle of nowhere with no John Lewis unless I go to Bluewater! You see the problem? They are kind enough to send me catalogues, though, so I can sit n a cardboard box and drool over what my life will be like when I’m ‘nice’. Actually, one of the characters in The Novel has a John Lewis house and I’ve got catalogue pages ripped out and stuck to my pinboard so I can visualise her there, putting her cushions in alphabetical order.
Maddie - Ikea really IS like childbirth, you’re spot on! I must confess, I did feel quite smug with my John Lewis bag containing fruit bowl. What a saddo.
Since Meadowhall shopping centre is known in our house as Meadowhell, a place where I once lost the car because there are too many car parks and they all look the same, I don’t think I could cope with Bluewater. And the only way to do Ikea is midweek, arriving at 9:45pm with a list and 15 minutes to grab the items before it closes. But if I could go to Loch Fyne on a shpping day, I could probably be persuaded to shop more often. I’d still hate it though
Poor bf, I loathe shopping and too many people and the worst I have to cope with is St Helier in the summer! I would get completely lost in some massive Ikea shop, although there is a couple over here who goes to Ikea regularly and brings back items for locals but I think they charge something like 30% of the cost of the shopping (not sure exactly but it’s a lot).
I loved the cartoon, LOVED it.
I am always so bloody moody when I heave the trolley round Ikea.
I bit people’s heads off, get really hungry and end up pleading with the shop assistants to show me the quick wayout.
Yes, great cartoon!
Poor, poor bf. When I go on shopping jaunts I go alone. No witnesses, please. When I come home with yet more bags of stationery, a stash of perfume and some fabulously expensive makeup that I’ll never use, the folks assume that’s what I went shopping for.
Sal - Meadowhell sounds about right and, oh! those car parks! I’d do most things if it contained lunch at Loch Fyne. I do actually dream about squid which is a little worrying.
Debs - St Helier in Summer is pretty grim though, all those doddering dimwits getting in the way when you’re trying to do a lunchtime dash. Even an extra 30% on top of Ikea prices would still make the stuff cheap compared to the non-bargains to be had in Jersey.
Hullaballooooo - I think they do something funny to the lighting in the warehouse bit of Ikea. My head always goes all swirly and I just grab anything in a bid to escape.
Liane - ah, yes, not telling people what’s on the agenda means they can’t smirk when we fail spectacularly. You’re good!
I once attempted to get to the Ikea at Brent Park. I’d been there once before with a friend who did all the driving, but on my own I couldn’t manage it. I could it in the distance, (I WAS wearing my glasses) but I kept going round the roundabout and taking the wrong exit. I went home in the end. It’s scarred me for life.
I loved the cartoon too. And so did Top Bloke.
Karen - Maybe NOT wearing our glasses would be better for these hair-raising adventures? We could try wearing a hat for the hair-raising bit. I have a feeling that life is more easily accomplished while wearing a bowler hat.
Zinnia - Definitely a bloke cartoon, that!
Oh, I hate shopping malls, but love Ikea. Ideally tho’ they’d shut the shop for me so I could wander round in undisciplined fashion ignoring all the shortcuts lovely husband gleefully points out to me. Too often the experience resembles queueing with the world and his wife to sign some very famous person’s book of remembrance.
Love the blog - wouldn’t it make a book of its own, poss with a bit of tweaking?
Honeysuckle - Hello! I like the idea of Ikea being closed to everyone else while we wander about, willfully ignoring the arrows and walking round in the wrong direction. You’re quite right about it being like a remembrance - our menfolk would no doubt claim to be in mourning of hours worth of their lives. A book of the blog? Aw, you sweetie. Sadly, I am far too dull to make anything out of my own dreary life