A tale of two pouffes

It's been over 18 months.  Ooops.  

Blog silence has been at least partly caused by competing matters for my attention.  In the past 18 months I have done this:

(70.3 Ironman)

This:

(Team Ski 2014)

This:

(Paris Marathon)

And this:

(London Ride 100)

(I'm on the right)

Rob has done some stuff too.

Oh, and we did this:

Not the kissing thing, the getting engaged thing.

So having sorted that out, I felt ready to tackle the blog again.  And Rob tells me that an alarming number of people think we are still living in a part-finished flat, because for them time stood still at the end of the last blog post.  Perfectly reasonable assumption, but a bit distressing (we might procrastinate, but we aren't quite that bad).

I also felt it was important to update the blog because a VERY IMPORTANT THING HAS HAPPENED.

We have bought a new chair.  Not particularly momentous sounding, I know.  But bear with me.

We went back to the place we got most of our lights from, and spent a surprising length of time sitting, getting up, sitting, getting up, making 'mmm' noises, sitting, getting up...

Rob especially enjoyed this chair, fitting in as it does with the white theme:

"Do you expect me to buy this chair?!"

"Why no Mr. Blackett, I expect you to pose in it for a photo opportunity like everyone else who comes in this shop and then buy something far more sensible!"

Something far more sensible was clearly a cowhide chaise lounge in my opinion, but oddly Rob didn't agree.

Rob rather liked this one, despite the cowhide.  And very useful in case either of us gain several stone around our thighs.

Since I was not allowed the cowhide chaise lounge, I campaigned for this lovely green elephant chair:

But I was overruled in favour of this.  It's called the orange slice.  (really).

(sorry about Rob's hideous shoes photo bombing there)

It is an extremely relaxing chair, as you can see by Rob's zen demeanour here.

Also here, for the first time, is Rob's new favourite thing - his tape measure.  I think it makes him feel extra manly.  It's very long.  Other people in the furniture shop asked to borrow it.  I think that was probably the highlight of his day.

Other than the chair, we are also looking for a side board for the sitting room.  Since we have decided to get married, Rob has decided that we need somewhere to store napkins and spare cutlery.  This wasn't the case before, but the second he got the ring on my finger, napkin storage became really important.

Here's Rob assessing how many napkins might fit inside this sideboard:

And finally, this shop also offers some essential household items that might interest your average middle-class Londoner.  No home is complete without a wooden paddle to store your vodka glasses on:

Next, on a wave of positive vibes from the wedding plans, Rob announced today that he felt it was time for a rematch with I**a.  This time, it would be Team G-B versus the Nordic nightmare.  Strap yourselves in....

We were in the market for more bedroom furniture and some pouffes.  Who isn't, on a Saturday morning?  Whilst an L-shaped sofa was previously sufficient for his needs, Rob recently decided that the new fashionable letter to aim for was actually a U, and this could only be achieved with the addition of some pouffes.  So we were off.

Now you may recall that our previous trip(s) to I**a had included some extremely stressful hours spent in the car park trying to compress 2000 litres of furniture into the 1180 litres offered by the boot space of our Skoda Fabia.  I know it's 1180 litres, because I had to panic-phone my Dad in the queue to pay in I**a 4 minutes before closing time with mountains of flat pack furniture, trying to calculate the conversion between cubic volume in litres and the piles of cardboard in front of me.  

So this time, we were READY.

But somehow, we were still standing at the checkout with these boxes and worried faces.

But this time, we had a secret weapon.  Rob had his TAPE MEASURE.

Here it is again in action:

TEA BREAK

(bonus tape measure shot)

And Rob told me he was just going to get a 'quick snack':

Despite not batting an eyelid at the 'quick snack', and not being allowed the elephant chair earlier, I still wasn't allowed a panda from the pile-'o'-pandas  :-(

There are lots of slightly sad, under-stuffed pandas in I**a who need a loving home.  I wasn't allowed to have one in the slum, but perhaps you will be.

We did manage to fit it all in the boot (no pandas), but not without Rob deciding that the most fun way to pack a car in a busy car park in I**a on a Saturday morning is to create a rule that you must chant the correct name of the product you are trying to pack in the car, before being allowed to put it in.

HILARIOUS.

So we had a lot of this:

Karlstad!
Ribba!
Karlstad!
Gurli!
SIOBHAN YOU HAVE TO SAY THE NAMES!
Karlstad!
Nyttja!
Stromby!
Stromby!
SIOBHAN!!!!
Tofto!
Pluggis!
SIOBHAN!!!!  PLUGGIS!!!!

So that was fun.

On arrival back at the slum Rob did all the pouffe assembly:

He tells me that he is going to leave the other furniture assembly until the weekend that the orange slice chair also arrives and requires assembling, on the basis that he 'might as well do it all at the same time'.  You'll be relieved to know that I've arranged to be out of the country, and in fact on a different continent, on that particular weekend.

So, some final thoughts from this weekend.  

I initially misread this sign in I**a as 'Thanks everyone for using flapjacks'

And I**a do BEER.  Well, Ol Ljus Lager Lager Beer, but who's quibbling when you've already got your tape measure out all over the shop.

Here's Rob demonstrating not only the pouffes, but also the lager lager beer.

Postscript

I hear you shout "but what's the point of this blog post Siobhan? You promised us some VERY IMPORTANT THING but nothing has happened so far apart from some gratuitous tape measuring".





The orange slice chair is RED.