Blue and Yellow Makes Green

I must be the only thirtysomething (hangin in there) who’d never done it. ‘I can’t believe you’ve never tried it, you’ll love it’ veterans said. ‘Don’t do it at the weekend and you need to know exactly what you want’ was the advice. Well, that’s not me for a start. Not good with choices, a biteen indecisive at times. And it isn’t off the ground The Youngest licked it, turning into her ‘aul one. She has trouble deciding which cereal to have (just a choice of two, it’s not a hotel buffet breakfast after all). Bless her. As for clothes, just as well she has a uniform, that’s all I’ll say. Thus, I have avoided it like the plague, for many reasons. ‘You will come away feeling inadequate’ one of my inner voices said. ‘You will have no more excuses’ the other voice said and that one has a tofty condescending Oxfordshire cadence to it. But alas there was stuff to get and an executive decision was made, we’d give it a go. SatNav set to the great Blue and Yellow Mecca of Interiors...IKEA.

Off to Milton Keynes with the pair of us of a Monday morning. Himself blessing himself walkin through the doors. The anxiety building already. I don’t like big shops. I get discombobulated. Dundrum Shopping Centre made me dizzy the one and only time I was in it. As for Macys, it just vexed me and I came away hangin for a pint. If I had the reddies I’d get meself one of those personal shoppers. Now with IKEA it’s angst at a whole new level. Those Blue and Yellow people mess with your heads. That’s another motive for not setting foot in the place,  there is the chance that forever after one might feel a slight pressure to have all things in their place.  Anyone who has had the IKEA experience, and that was everyone except me, will know what I mean. Yip, those little rooms they have set up all nice and organised. They should just put up a few banners, in really big writing shouting ‘come on then, get a grip, you could do this to!’.

You may have seen it in some real life houses where people allegedly live. I certainly have over here. Everything aesthetically pleasing, atmospherically lit, cushioned, countered, shelved, shuttered and drawered to within an inch of itelf.  And not a sign of a faux leather couch in site. But what you don’t see in these all very ideal IKEA rooms are the piles that gather on the end of the kitchen counter, hall table or wherever.  Like a small tip for random things. The arbitrary items that escape from the handbag or the schoolbag or wherever...leaflets, bills, hair clips, lip gloss, a glove, glasses case, loose change, half eaten apple, packet polo mints, unsharpened pencils, more bills, used bus and cinema tickets. So the Blue and Yellow people who design these ergonomically exquisite spaces really think of everything. Ergo, no excuse for clutter, for bits and bobs. I am no longer an IKEA virgin. Regrettably, my predictions were correct, my inner voices spot on. It will take more than wicker baskets and a few shelves to organise my life. Now where did I put that half eaten apple? 

Boxed in

In our wisdom (not!) last August we packed up everything from our home in Galway to make this move.  I mean everything. There were even logs in the log basket. Much remained unopened, predominantly books. Boxes and boxes of them and at that I have given scores of them to local charity shops. But there are many, however, I cannot part with. Today, I again found myself with tape and boxes, shifting and lifting and moving. The removal truck now makes its way from Oxfordshire to Galway with our surplus to requirements. No room at the inn. The double bed where the children were conceived is gone back too. The Small Man relegated to a single bed.  I should have got them to take the Christmas tree as well (still in the back garden). I can now make my way to the tumble dryer in the garage without the bicycle pedals cutting the shins of me each time. The lady across the road from us lives in her garage. Always, her derriere high in the air, head in the freezer. I saw her face for the first time today when she complained about the removal truck. Perhaps she might fall in and keep her husband company.  No one really gives you any advice before you move. Hindsight is mighty. Makes you wonder about what we use, what we need, how much accoutrements we accumulate. I now think my objective in life should be to get rid of all my possessions over the coming years, buy a van and let the rest of the world go by (oh and invest in a Kindle). Life would be much simpler. No? I should adapt the minimalist Ryanair ‘Just the shirt on your back’ attitude, less stressful. Flying home last Thursday morning the nice lady checked my bag with her big cereal box. She grimaced, I grinned. She might have taken my shirt.   

I’ve come to love that Dublin Galway motorway but in one direction only. Like a child on Christmas Eve I bombed it home, bursting to see them all. ‘Are ya settled now?’ , this question I cannot answer. We used to live in Dublin and Co Kildare, for a good few years, before all the by-passes. Each Sunday evening our heads would hang low, heading back East in the aul Ford Fiesta. As I walked the prom Sunday morning, that gloomy feeling was back again but more intense. I used to relish approaching the ‘Departures’ sign in the airport. Not anymore. And I know I’m just across the water. I can come over and back with relative ease. Still, it’s a Galway thing. There are many who came to Galway to visit or work, and never left, including the man I married.  Chatting to a nice lady in college on Friday I discovered she lives in Dubai. I asked her, what brought her to Dubai, ‘Bloody husband’ she said. She asked me what brought me to England, ‘Bloody husband’ I retorted. Enough said.