Well, Wife and I got back from home last week. We were there for a week to attend a wedding over the weekend and for me to have some meetings at the main office. It was a good trip but way too short. I think we both felt like that we were going nonstop from the time that our plane hit the ground. At least we had wonderful, cool weather to greet us on our return.
The wedding went really well, and seeing our friends was great. I don’t think either of us realized how much we miss everybody back home until we saw them all again.
Unfortunately we were expecting to have our sea shipment delivered last week, but moving companies are dumb. I had made it very clear that we weren’t going to be available on Monday or Tuesday of last week since we were returning on Tuesday. So when do they want to deliver our stuff? Tuesday of course. And they only called at noon that day to try to arrange it. At that point we were still trying to find our way back to terminal 2 from terminal 4 at Heathrow to catch our parking shuttle.
Heathrow has got to be the most screwed up airport. The lines are confusing, you don’t know your gate until 30 or 40 minutes before it closes, and you may be at least 15 minutes away when you find out. I can’t even imagine what it’s been like the last few days with the increased security.
Back to our shipment. Needless to say we couldn’t take delivery by the time we got home at 2:00, so I asked if we could have it delivered later in the week. I’m sure they enjoyed telling me that they were already booked and that we would have to wait for this Tuesday. I want to send them the doctor bill for straightening my back out because the air mattress isn’t doing good things to it.
Since we didn’t have our stuff to organize we had to find something to do over the weekend. Wife thought it would be a good idea to head to IKEA in London to try to find a chair and coffee table. I agreed that this was a fine idea. IKEA didn’t want to cooperate though. If you’re ever driving from southwest of London into Croydon, don’t. Turn around and go back. It’s the longest, most boring drive through suburbia with no straight roads.
Once we finally got there the store was pretty impressive. We’d never been to one, but we had seen their furnishings before and really liked them. It took us all of a half hour to find the perfect chair that we liked.
For those who have never been to IKEA, one way they keep their prices down is that they have a massive showroom and then a self-service warehouse. You take note of the location in the warehouse of your items and their description and then you go find the items in the warehouse.
We were set. We knew what we wanted, according to the signs on the floor the chair and cushions were in stock, and everything was cheap to boot. It was just too easy. That’s when our luck ran out. We must have picked the most popular combination of chair and cushions in the place because once we got down to the warehouse we found that almost all the combinations of the chair and cushions were sold out. I wanted to post a link to the chair, but Wife says people have to come visit us to see it (we should have it by then). I like her thinking.
Feeling a little discouraged we briefly contemplated buying a different combination but then thought of another solution. Surely we could order the exact chair we wanted online and have it delivered. In the immortal words of the Guinness scientists: “Brilliant!!” Eh, not so much.
IKEA, enlightened though they are, does not yet have the capacity to handle online shopping in the UK. Foiled again. I definitely see a trip to the Bristol store as soon as they have the chair in stock. It may be farther away, but we won’t have to deal with the M25 or London.
The highlight of the weekend was probably on Saturday night. We heard loud, fireworks explosions. Wife went to look out the second bedroom window and saw that they were coming from the direction of the Queen Mary, which was in dock at the time. We had a great vantage point for the majority of the show from our bedroom and brought our spirits back up after the disappointing shopping trip.
As a new feature on the blog, I’m going to start posting recipes that I make up. Saturday night I made a really nice spinach salad for the two of us. Please feel free to comment if you try the recipes so I know whether to improve them or not.
Spinach Salad
4 cups baby spinach leaves, washed thoroughly
2 oz. fresh goat’s cheese, crumbled
1/2 cup dried apricots, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup shaved almonds
1/4 cup and 1 T. extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
4 tsp. Balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
In a small skillet heat 1 T. of olive oil over low heat. Add almonds and toast until lightly browned. Remove from heat and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk the remaining olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, and mustard until an emulsion forms. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Toss the spinach in the dressing until leaves are coated with a thin layer of dressing. Divide the leaves equally among two plates. Top with the apricots, cheese, and almonds.
Serves two for dinner or four as a side salad.
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