Saturday was quite aggravating.
The first thing that happened was that I tried to watch a DVD, which seemed to keep getting interrupted by phone calls. The first was from the carpet shop, checking that all was OK with the new carpet, that I liked it, etc. Nice touch... but not necessarily the kind of call you want early on a Saturday morning.
Next up, and only a little further into the movie, my mother phoned to say they'd be making their way over shortly to fit my new kitchen light and measure up for the hall shelves... This brought an end to the movie.
Which kind of makes me wonder if I am getting precognitive in my old age... Because, when my folks came by, they decided to let themselves in rather than use the buzzer, even though they knew I was there. I shall have to set those Groundrules sooner rather than later, I fear. I can't have them treating the flat as an extension of their house... It's my place, and they're going to have to understand what that means and both accept and respect that.
All sorts of daft arguments ensued while my father was fitting the light - not least the final one, where he asked which way round I wanted the fitting to be (it features three spotlights, and can only be attached to its mounting in one of two ways), only to leave it fitted the easiest way rather than the way I asked, arguing that he didn't see what difference it made. Next up, he spent far longer than necessary ascertaining that most of the hall is a real wall on one side and, consequently, could have shelves mounted quite easily. Only a small portion - near the bathroom door - is plasterboard... and we knew that already.
Afterward, the three of us went off in search of a sofabed place I found online, who have a showroom in easy travelling distance from the flat. Sadly, no-one thought to either bring the map (easily available on their website) or note directions... so we got hopelessly lost. We took a wrong turn straight out of the station and just carried on going. My mother "was sure it was straight on through the shops", so we were trusting her sense of direction. My father vocalised his frustration far more than I did, and my mother ended up calling 118118 for directions.
Sadly, she couldn't remember the name of the place (it is rather a silly name), so they weren't able to help... And if they were, she wasn't able to hear them anyway. Calling on a cellphone, right by a roundabout, on a Saturday afternoon, isn't the greatest of plans.
So we headed back to the shopping centre and, from there, the station to head home. The whole thing was a complete waste of time and, as it turned out today when I went back for another try, we had walked in basically the opposite direction.
My trip today had a dual purpose. First port of call was the flat, so that I could drop off the painting I'm going to hang in the lounge and collect my wash kit and book for the week ahead.
I briefly entertained the idea of staying there overnight, and heading to work from the flat... but in the end, it just didn't seem practical. Yet. Nearly there, though.
Before I headed off in search of the sofabed place (a task made much easier by the directions I'd keyed into my cellphone), I stopped off for some lunch in KFC. The last thing I wanted to do was give myself a headache through not eating before doing something stressful like wandering around somewhere I've never been before...
But, bizarrely, I didn't even need to refer to my phone. I got all the way to the business park and only checked there because I wanted to make sure I'd got the right place (because it looked deserted, being a Sunday and all). Nevertheless, I quickly found the showroom - quite a small one, as it happens, but nicely set up. The woman minding the shop was very helpful, knew the products well (always useful), and made a few points I might otherwise have forgotten about.
I left with a handful of fabric samples, but a nagging feeling their sofabeds wouldn't necessarily fit. My lounge is quite narrow, and the measurement for the extent of the bed sounded suspiciously close to the full width of the room (not that I remembered it exactly). The last thing I want of to have a sofabed that doesn't leave room for anything else. That said, a corner sofa might work out better... I'll need to check the measurements.
Heading back into the shopping centre, I put Plan B into action and started browsing for (a) a washing bin, (b) something to put my Ikea cooking utensils in that isn't the drawer they're in now, (c) a knife rack and (d) some Kalms (now that I'm using them again, I found I'd all but run out)
A to C were a bust. While I found plenty of washing bins, none were quite what I was after. Storage for cooking utensils and knives tends to come with its intended contents (damn you, Ikea... why didn't you think of that?). The Kalms, thankfully, were far simpler. Easily found in a branch of Boots. The girl behind the counter asked if I was aware that they were part of a '3 for 2' offer, and I replied (seriously, until I was halfway through the sentence) that I wouldn't need that many. She pointed out that it was '3 for 2, mix and match with other similar products', but I declined.
On the upside, when I returned to the flat to collect my backpack and bring things back to the house, I popped into the shop of useful nicknacks and bought myself the kind of washing basket you unload the washing machine into.
Which is something.
Returning to my parents' house, I found my mother had returned to bed - This would generally mean (given that she was out when I left, and the only contact I had made during the day was a text message to the effect that I'd found the shop) that she was upset with me and pretending to be ill - and that someone had printed out the map from the shop's website.
Perhaps I was wrong about her being upset - it's possible she had a headache, or just felt tired - because she seemed quite perky later on.
Watched Being Human, as usual... Quite a dark episode this time round, with Annie confronting her murderous ex-boyfriend and finding him completely unphased, Mitchell learning a nasty truth about Herrick's master plan, and three staked vampires. Gripping stuff... even when the main story arc looms, there's still a large human element to the drama.
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