Night Starvation

We have been sleeping on a bed left by the previous owners, but it is narrow, with a big dip in the middle. So we have finally decided that enough is enough, and a new bed is needed. But have you seen the prices of beds!! We are also concerned that, with the major work to be done in the house, any furniture is going to be ruined ( covered in dust etc. at the least).

Yesterday, we combined our day off (yes we do have one from time to time) with a trip to Ikea at Toulouse. What an eye opener! The goods on display are the same as in the UK, I'm sure, but it is some time since we went to the Ikea store in Nottingham and so we were interested to see their new items as well as their beds. We obviously aren't ready to buy furniture and things yet; we don't want to start aquiring more things to store, but it is good to get ideas for the future.

We got to the store about 11'ish so we thought that we'd have lunch in the restaurant. We had to join a long queue but things moved on fairly rapidly. Some of you may know that I am an ardent people watcher. Sue says I'm nosey, but I'm fascinated by observing cultural differences, and this lunch was a case in point. At first glance, it was just like any large store cafeteria, but then the differences crept in. Everyone took a glass (not a plastic beaker) with their cutlery on their tray for their water at the table or their wine. (Guess what we had!) We passed on the starters of Smoked Salmon or Prawns on a piece of toast. We both chose Canneloni, helped ourselves to a bowl of salad from the salad bar, poured ourselves a glass of wine from an opened bottle, and selected our dessert. And all for 18 euros, or the equivalent of about £6 each. And it was lovely!

In the afternoon things got serious - the bed. Our only criterion was that the mattress should be comfortable, so Sue duly laid on a number of them. Not quite the same as sleeping on it for a whole night, but better than nothing. So, choice made we went to the self-service area to load the bits on to a trolley. It was here that my only qualm appeared when I saw that what should be a mattress was rolled up in a plastic bag.

As you can see from the photo, I was a bit dubious that these few parcels would become a double bed including mattress. However, we are trusting people, (plus it all worked out a lot cheaper than the beds we had seen in the department stores) so we brought it all home. This morning I set to and, within a couple of hours a bed had appeared.

We were both pleased with the finished result.....except....

It was only as I finished, and unwrapped the mattress that we saw a note which explained that the mattress had been compressed and would take 3 to 4 days to regain its normal size. The good news is that we are going off to stay with friends for 5 days, and the bad news is that we need something to sleep on tonight. So it's going to be bedding down on the sofas in the lounge tonight, and we know that the cats are going to be delighted!!!