(back blipped)

Off to London today, helping my brother and his wifey move house. Steve's in the van, Ben and I are in the car. Ben is obsessed with Daddy's Van, every time he sees it he cheers and shouts "daddyvan!!"

Only took 2 van loads, am really really impressed. Full loads, but only two nonetheless. Excellent help from some of their friends, and wifey's mother. Had to take out the window in the new place (a basement flat - weird to me, but evidently quite normal in London!) to get the sofa in. The previous owners had taken the window out once already to get their sofa out (well, I imagine they would have taken it out twice really, once to get it in in the first place...) so the house was used to being abused in this way...

Once the sofa was in, Ben took great delight in standing on the edge of it, jumping off (with help) and sliding down the back. Repeatedly. He took a couple of hours to get used to everybody but by mid afternoon was bossing everybody around. Even managed to get his Uncle Matt to climb into a wardrobe and shut the door on himself. (Uncle Matt snook out when Ben wasn't looking, that confused him....)

Once all was unloaded and the window fixed back in place, we went off to Ikea. Bear in mind it was now gone 7pm. Closer to 8pm. Thankfully the restaurant was still open when we got there, I think by this point I would have actually cried if the restaurant had been closed...

And the thing we went for, a kitchen unit and some black doors, were out of stock.

So we came back with a bed for Ben.

Only the frame, though: the mattress was out of stock, and we forgot the tent covering for it.

That's what you get for going to Ikea two hours before closing time :)

I suppose I could mention that we bought more train set for Ben, and a little birthday present for him, and got all the bits and pieces for the kitchen unit - we'll just have to g another day for the unit itself - and a mattress for Ben!


The picture is some detail from some of their furniture. Lots of pieces of heavily decorated Chinese furniture, owing to wifey being Chinese.


And we got home at gone 2am. Shattered! And up early in the morning - Steve is cycling to work, and I have to get up to drop the keys back at the van hire place by 8.30am!



Have done lots of thinking about balance. I think @horrigans' advice will stick with me though. "See where the opportunities lie, and don't beat yourself up along the way." Thanks Sarah :)