Repent! - IKEA is at hand (in Southampton)

Weekends seem to be so busy again.  Retirement is certainly not about sitting down and relaxing for long periods of time.  Yet another very early morning start.  Tom was off on his paper round - he loves Saturdays as he gets paid on these days - and I went across to the Village Hall to the Men's Annual Breakfast where the speaker this morning was the Army Chaplain General, The Venerable Rev (Padre) Steve Robbins who turned out to be a brilliant and very engaging speaker.  It was really interesting to hear about the role of the army chaplain in history and today, especially in Afghanistan and other places of conflict.  I received further words of congratulation from Patrick and Chris on my selection for ministry training and I sat with Patrick during the breakfast where we talked about his forthcoming holiday in Lincolnshire.  I recommended him to visit Tattershall Castle and Cleethorpes (his wife, Angela, would like to visit the coast whilst they are up there) and try out the fish and chips, which he promised to do.  They will be staying in Lincoln (their first trip ever up to that part of the world) and I also recommended that they try the ice creams at Skellingthorpe.  Back home, I dealt with some Complex work, notably I wrote out a bill for a client in Sussex - we need to get some money in with all the recent expenditure - and drove into Andover to bank some further cheques, post the bill and visit the market where I bought some lovely cherries - a fruit Mary particularly likes.  This afternoon I went with Sara and Mary to Southampton to visit IKEA - a three-hour visit which I absolutely hated (a game of cricket at the Rose Bowl doesn't last as long!).  The purpose of the visit was to look at some bedroom furniture and office furniture for the new rooms in the house and after three hours we came away with about £40 of items - mainly candles and a new desk lamp for my own study.  I really find IKEA a stressful place - things are so spread out; it takes ages to get round things; the furniture is so chunky and requires an honours degree in construction to make it; and to top it all I bought fish and chips in the restaurant under the mistaken belief that it was a snip at £1.49 to find that because I had bought it ten minutes earlier than 5 p.m. I would have to pay £4.89.  In fact, I only really bought something to make the car parking free!  I have yet to meet anybody who finds IKEA a relaxing, enjoyable experience.  Klynn described it as an example of Hell on Earth - must use that in one of my early sermons! That is bound to get people repenting!  The only saving grace was that I got a good view of Independence of the Seas as she set sail for the Med. This was a great view from Marks & Spencer in West Quay  before they built the great IKEA blot of Southampton's landscape!  Back home I was quite tired and so had a lovely muscle relaxing bath before spending a bit of time in the study talking to my good friend Malcolm in Liverpool over the telephone and writing up this blog.  I'll leave it to Sara to go to IKEA in future.  I keep thinking every time I go that it can't be as bad as the last time - and it always is!  Cheap 35p ice creams at the end are always something of an award for the endurance of it all.