IKEA

The start of a new year for some reason means doing up the house. Around this time about six years ago I expressed an interest in redecorating my violently pink bedroom and after a lot of tantrums and a bit of emotional blackmail my father agreed to drive me up to Ikea Nottingham. Today it finally happened.

Ikea is genuinely a pit of hell for me but a necessary one. I have never had a pleasant experience going there- and due to my parents' many public (pre-divorce) arguments held in the picture framing department (one of which my year 5 maths teacher happened to be present for.. I remember the shame on Monday morning) - visits tend to encourage foul memories to raise their ugly heads. Regardless, we've all had therapy since our last trip when my father just gave up and walked out and we drove back to Leicester with nothing, so I thought I'd be safe to brave it again.

Wrong.

When you are trying to assess whether every mild abdominal cramp or burp is in fact the early stages of the Norovirus the best place to be is probably not the world's number one furniture retailer, during the end of season sales. Why do they sell so much crap?? Why don't they have any windows? Or make it obvious what measurements things are?

5 minutes in, (Living showroom at this point) despite 15 people standing within about 4 feet of him my dad decided to announce to the [fake] room, "I AM ALREADY AT THE POINT WHERE I'M READY TO SELF HARM, CAN WE GET A MOVE ON PLEASE?" I don't know if this was worse than thirteen years ago when my parents had that fight, a few people were actually laughing at him this time so I laughed too, I don't think he realised other people heard because when I laughed he started miming slitting his wrists and that's when people edged away from him. Understandable perhaps, in Living, where all they offer for entertainment is a sofa. Childrens Ikea is comedy: going up the bunkbed ladders even though they've put a big plastic slate over the rungs and sitting on the top bunks watching the shop assistants below like tree frogs in the rainforest is one way you can make this department a playground; Office provides equipment and space for swivel chair races; and Bedroom beats all with a rare opportunity to literally go to sleep in public. Despite all this we are still scraping the barrel here to make a trip entertaining.

but at what emotional cost?

I came out of this with a bit of bookshelf that had broken, a duvet cover that I got 10 years ago and spilt something on so bought again, and a 3 pack of loofahs. The total at the cash register was £390.47. My sister Joanna and I disappeared pretty swiftly after seeing that pop up. Natalie on the till kindly asked if my dad had a Family card. He responded in the affirmative, in a tone that if we were to be sympathetic/soft could be described as 'mardy' but more truthfully as hostile, if not rude, unpleasant and 'borderline violent'. I felt sorry for Natalie because the card got him 10% off. Not a discount to be sniffed at given today's grand total if you ask me but I didn't mention it to my father. He doesn't appreciate my running commentary like most people do. In this case he was actually unable to speak for around twenty-five minutes after making the transaction, unless you count unintelligible mutterings, which I don't. He was pouting a lot and couldn't really look us in the eye. I thought it best to keep quiet about the fact I'd come out with 70p's worth of brightly coloured loofahs whereas he had chosen to buy decorative fairy lights at the age of 57, along with a selection of knives and rugs and pillow protectors. (What do you need to protect your pillows from??) Any smug comments I made about my minimal contribution to his bankruptcy would have either been ignored, hissed at, or met with a punch in the ribs from my sister who is desperate for him to forget that the sheepskin rug she 'needed' cost £30. Quite a pretty penny given the average price in that shop. I piped down.

Fortunately for Joanna and me, a woman eating in the cafe had the forethought to pack tweezers and a compact mirror in her handbag for her visit, so as we enjoyed our meatballs she was going for it on her beard. Dad perked up remarkably at this point and cracked his iPhone out to a take a picture of her over his shoulder and send to his friend. He was able to talk almost normally at this point. Until we told him we had to go on a 20 minute detour to a 24 hour Tesco to get contact lens solution. This did not go down well.

Dad's years living in Sweden have made him the country's biggest fan. We have spent summers there, weekend breaks to Stockholm and winter breaks skiing, so the whole family tend to have an adoration for all things Svenska - Volvos, Abba, Astrid Lindgren, Carl Larsson, elk.......... Ikea, however, is not one of them.