It could be put off no longer….today was Ikea day! We had pretty much exhausted the possibilities of Target (for this week anyway!) and we needed to hit the big blue and yellow store for some nice bits and pieces – rugs, lamps and kitchen utensils, pans, jugs, candles…it was a pretty big list!! I would like to say we were up and off early, but no…Stephen had to do a conference call with the UK first thing, which took about an hour and a half, during which time I ran up and down the stairs about 6 times looking for the huge bag of towels I’d bought the day before. I thought I was going nuts cos I couldn’t find them! Turns out Stephen had put them in a drawer in our room – possibly the last place I would have looked!! Then I couldn’t find any of the many sheets of passport photos I’d brought with me, which meant another 5 times up and down the stairs! Then we had to post something, so Stephen was dispatched to ask our nice neighbour next door…which took about 20 minutes. In the end I think we eventually made it out the house by about 10:30...not too good considering that we’d been up since 7am!
Ikea was everything you would expect it to be…big, inexpensive and full of arguing couples trailing tired and grumpy children!! We actually filled two trolleys full of stuff – you know the kind of thing you buy when you do to Ikea – spaghetti servers, bath mats…all the stuff that looks interesting when you’re walking round! We’d been hoping to get a tiny patio set to put on our bedroom balcony, but they had sold out. This was probably just as well as we pretty much filled the car and it would have been a bit of a squeeze to get it in!! It probably would have entailed me clinging onto the roof for the drive home!!!!
Morag and Simon had invited us down for drinks and dinner. They had also invited Chris and Memri and their two kids. Chris is an old friend of Stephen’s from Uni who has also moved to the Washington area, so there was a good bit of catching up done! After Stephen had mercilessly wound up Morag about getting some “Good home cooking” she had slaved away making salads and “pulled chicken” which is like shredded chicken in a BBQ sauce - good Southern cooking. It was delicious! Memri had brought “better than sex” chocolate cake…which was very chocolaty! I had (true to form!) brought wine!! I need to remember that the American way is to ask what the hostess needs brought…chips and dip, dessert, a salad… they will always ask and do expect to be told to bring something. I wonder if I can get away with asking people to bring Pot Roast??!!
(Friday 6th July)
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