Won't work

The rental car needed to be back around 8am so we left a few minutes before the time and drove the five minuets it needed to get the car back to Enterprise. When there is no traffic everything is easier. The car was checked over and no issues found so we walked home.

After a little bit of breakfast we headed off to Ikea.  The primary goal was to buy a couple of boxes for the flat on the Isle of Wight which we wanted in a greenish colour.  This colour can’t be ordered online and seems to be being phased out at Ikea. It’s described as a “timeless plastic box in which to hide everything from socks to gadgets” which amused me.  But it’s a green plastic box - that tuned out to be - like everything Ikea - not quite as simple to put together as I had hoped. It’s only a couple of clicks but lining everything up so the box held together was more complex.  But we got them and they fit the unit as we need them to.

I looked around for some other items.  I thought this might be a useful draining rack as it’s mounted on a rail and could, therefore, save some counter space. I am glad I didn’t invest in it as, when I measured up, it would not have fit anywhere.

Wandering the vast Ikea warehouse  took us a bit longer than we thought and we were not back until nearly 12pm which meant that our planned departure on the 12:13pm as postponed by an hour. In the end that worked out for the best as we could have had some lunch and the connecting train at Guildford was canceled on the early journey.  We did leave after 1pm, via a twenty minute pause at Guildford, to board the 4:15pm Wightlink to Ryde.  It was, probably, one of the busiest FastCats we have taken. PY couldn’t get a decent mobile signal to book a ticket and he got a bit worried that so many people queuing would cause a problem but, of course, it didn’t and there was plenty of space. We were carrying quite a number of bags as we have some items to bring down to The Island  - including the aforementioned boxes - so we took up a lot of space. And it was quite heavy to carry to the flat.

Upon arrival we were delighted to find that the one night storage heater we had left to keep a minimum temperate in the place though winter was working better than expected and everything seemed quite warm.  But we didn’t hang about long as we went off to the Co-op to get a 2Good2Go bag. I’ve written about them before and they are a way shops can dispose of food that is at the sell-by date to people willing to pay for a mystery bag and trade certainty for value. 

We got some good items but I was kicking myself that I bought fresh milk and blueberries because the bag also contained some. Once we checked the bag we decided on pasta for the evening and I went to a different branch of the same supermarket to pick-up the extra items that are needed for that.

We have still not be able to get the new oven and hob installed. However, we tested the hob to make sure it heats up and set off for Tesco to buy a couple of pans so that - between the hob and the microwave - we can make nicer dinners simply reheating ready meals. We found a nice couple of pans and bought them. We also found an air fryer which seemed to have a decent Clubcard discount so we bought that too which made the whole round trip more expensive than expected (and a bit more cumbersome on the bus).

We were back before 10pm. I cooked some pasta Carbonara and we watched some television: a bit of festive Gogglebox and a DCI Banks from 2011.