Monday, 20th July 2009
A Man With A Van
Today was supposed to be a happy day. Today was van-day.
I think all boys like vans and lorries – I know I do. Fi and I hired a van from Thrifty (a LWB Transit Van to be precise) today as we had to go to the dump to get rid of loads of awful carpets and wardrobe debris and we had to buy some bedroom furniture. We worked out that it would cost £60 to get IKEA to deliver what we wanted but we would have to wait two weeks for delivery or we could hire a van for £55 and do it ourselves. A bit of a no-brainer if you ask me, or so I thought…
The day started off really well. We collected the van at 09:00 and drove to the house to load it up. It only took about an hour and two-or-three slipped discs to get everything into the van and we were away. Visiting the dump seemed to be a treat for Fi (lucky me, eh?) as she had never been before. I must admit that there is something very therapeutic about smashing rubbish into giant skips. Not to mention the smug satisfaction of performing some truly ace parallel parking in a mighty vehicle.
After unloading the van, we drove to IKEA in Bristol to buy the necessary furniture. By now it was about 11:30 and we were making really good time (we were hoping to paint the feature walls in the bedrooms this evening). We had checked IKEA’s predicted stock levels before we left (there’s a clue in that sentence). We were purchasing a 2.5m x 2.36m wardrobe in oak for the master bedroom and a 2m x 2.36m wardrobe for the spare room in white. We also bought a bed for the spare room, two bedside tables and a mattress. What happened when we got down to the self-serve area? The oak frame was out of stock!
Disaster.
With the van only hired for the day and no stock in Bristol we ended up having to drive to bloody Cardiff to buy the frame. Not only that but there was no way of reserving the frame – we would have to drive there and risk that it was still in stock. Devastating. Not only were we facing loading the van with 300 kg of wood but we also had to make a 2 1/2 hour round trip, internationally, to another IKEA. Not fun.
Alas, there is a happy ending. The frame was still in stock when we got to Wales and so we had everything we needed. We got back to the house at around 18:00, unloaded everything and then painted two walls and two radiators. The takeaway curry at the end of the evening has almost undone all the wrongs of the day 
Here’s me being chuffed with my reverse parking in the van:
