What a day! It began at 11pm last night for J when his work
colleague in NZ rang with some queries. J spent the next two hours doing some
urgent work. Back to sleep for a few hours and then up at 5.50am in time to
catch the 6.35am bus to Perpignan. Drizzling a little but the weather forecast
was good. It was just a 10min walk to the car hire place but there was a very
convenient and welcome boulangerie right next to it so we had 10min rest to
enjoy an espresso before the company opened its doors.
A VERY large van awaited us. We didn’t want to have the same
problem we had when we hired the van for the trip from Paris to Perpignan,
planning to visit IKEA on the way, only to find the vehicle wasn’t long enough
to fit the frame of the sofabed. We wanted to make sure we had no problems this
time, and this place offered vans with 7-9m³ storage space. A very helpful
manager and, after climbing the lofty heights into the cab, plugged in the GPS
and set off in the direction of Montpellier. It is roughly 130km there, and the
time taken depends on whether you opt for toll roads or not. We took local
roads as far as Narbonne (halfway) and then the toll road the rest of the way.
On deck at IKEA, with our supermarket trolleys (plural!) at the ready by 11am.
We thought about three hours would see it wrapped up. We were wrong. Whipped
through the first huge part of the store which is given over to displaying all
the items on offer. We had made most of our buying decisions before today but
still had a few things to sort out. Decisions made and through to the general
household furnishings area where you can pick up lots of smaller items,
especially for the kitchen, here. Two full trolleys already. Paid for these and
at the same time ordered the bigger items which need to be assembled together
in the warehouse and picked up at a ‘retrieval’ point.
Threw (carefully) everything we had collected so far into
the van and straight back for the second round. Began with the IKEA specialty
in their café of meatballs and mash (for the grand sum of $10 total) and
quickly off to the large warehouse manned with two ‘cargo’ trolleys. Up and
down the aisles collecting larger flatpack items, such as shelving units,
living room table, dining chairs, 2 tub chairs etc. Chocka trolleys and zoomed
these back to the van. Next back to the retrieval point and collected two large
trolleys laden with the really big flatpacks (sofabed mechanism, shelf unit,
mirror) and back to the van. What a load – we spent the next hour packing it
all in carefully into the van and finally hit the road south just after 4pm.
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| Putting the last few things in at Leroy Merlin |
We decided we had to take the toll road back all the way to
have any hope of picking up our other heavy items, so paid the hefty sum of E11
for the comparatively quick 1.5hr trip back to Perpignan, halted abruptly by
untimely traffic jams on the motorway only 5km from our first destination.
Wasted 50 minutes getting the last 5km
but finally back to Maisons du Monde to check out two bedside cabinets we had
seen in their catalogue. They didn’t have any in stock so we will have to wait
a month until they are. Next stop was Castorama, which we have frequented at
least half a dozen times in the last month. Here we purchased some lovely floor
tiles for the bathroom and some shelving units for the storeroom, along with
another 12 litre pail of wall paint. Final dash to Leroy Merlin where we picked
up two wall heaters (one for half price because of a very small ding on its
underside J).
Wheeled these out the door at 8:01pm, with the store closing up behind us.
Phew, we had made our rounds, but only just.
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| Couldn't wait to get a couple of chairs half-assembled! |
All that remained now was to get home and get everything up
into the apartment. Ugh! Arrived home soon after 8:30pm but it wasn’t until
10:00pm that, after 13-14 loads up the two storied double flights of stairs, we
finally had everything inside the
apartment. Using our large backpacks to get the 30kg boxes of tiles up the
stairs wasn’t toooo bad, but struggling between us to carry the large and heavy
flatpacks up, partly in darkness, was a real mission. Collapsed on the bed in a
tangle of messy sweaty limbs for a 10 min breather at the end of all that. I
threw a can of something (some sort of vege mix) into the microwave and made up
some couscous for dinner while J caught up on work emails. Showers and into bed
at 11.30pm. It had been an extremely fun day in many ways but we could have
done without the time pressure. One particularly good thing today was an email
from plumber No. 2 with a quote of a shade over one third of the other one (not
quite comparable but near enough).
