NS September 24th, 2007

We bought a house on Friday. I was handed the keys at 4.04pm, put the key in the door at 5.25pm and am now officially, truly, indisputably a homeowner. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what have I done? I have a mortgage now. I have a garden, with a shed. I have flower beds. I have a loft (attic). I have stairs. I have two working fireplaces. I also now have twenty million keys. Here’s the proof.

Friday, 4.03pm. Key ownership: 1

Friday, 4.04pm. Key ownership: 20,900,202

I spent Saturday giving the place a once-over with a sponge and spray bottle of diluted bleach while Noble Husband and his father collected the van we hired to move all of our shit and loaded it up with said shit. I helped unload it then the guys went off to get a sofa and armchair from an ad we saw on Gumtree (the UK equivalent of Craig’s List) while I raced back to the in-laws’ house to look after the kiddo, whom my mother-in-law had been looking after.

The next day was spent packing up the van with the rest of our stuff and then dropping it off at the new house, returning the van and then taking the car to Ikea to purchase some god-awful flat packed furniture from the world’s favourite Swedish retailer. I was an Ikea virgin so was not fully prepared for the horror that is the Ikea Experience. The endless search for a parking space, the throngs of dirty, sweaty bargain shoppers, the vastness of the store, the idiocy of the staff, the queues for the rather unappetising-looking food, the wonky trolleys, the ‘out of stock’ signs on half of the items we wanted…I wanted to tie a venetian blind around my neck and jump from the nearest Sveltka bedroom set within two minutes of entering this hell hole.

I marched through there with pursed lips, determined to be the first person to ever get through Ikea, unscathed and without eating any of the food, within 1.5 hours. We made it by the skin of our teeth, thanks to my military-like shopping precision and no-nonsense attitude. The card says they’re out of stock? Screw it, we’ll have it delivered. No, we are not going to see what else is here that we might like. If it’s not on the pre-approved list, don’t go near it or you will get sucked into the Ikea vortex, which is stronger than any force known to bargain-mad mankind. It’s a known fact that if you spend too much time in that store that you start asking the fruit sellers at the market if the apples and oranges come with assembly instructions and your brain begins to bleed out of your ears and you start looking at Volvos with a glint of lust in your eye.

I may never be able to listen to Abba again.

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