An Ikea trip? What were we thinking...

IWAS googling ‘cheap sofa beds’ for my office when, in an uncharacteristic moment of impulsive adventure, my husband said, ‘Let’s get up really early and just GO to Ikea in Ballymun!’

It sounded a bit like a date and, even though we live in Mayo, I can never pass up an opportunity to bulk-buy scented candles.

I used to go to Ikea when I lived in London, but that was a long time ago and I had forgotten what it was like. My husband had experienced it once before, also a long time ago. For all that, I don’t know what we were thinking.

The kids were staying with their cousins overnight in Castlebar and we had a full day to ourselves. We had been talking about a few bits and pieces that we needed to finish off the house.

WE got lost on the way in, of course. All Ikea entrances are off tiny unsignposted roads so we were demented before we even parked.

We got in really early and it was reassuringly empty. We made it as far as the sofa bed department where we started vaguely looking around for a member of staff to help us. It felt like in the 10 seconds between looking at the sofa beds and looking from left to right the whole place filled up like a glass of water and we were surrounded by people.

I looked at my husband and he looked at me. We both remember at the same time. It was a bank holiday. We were in Ikea on a bank holiday. This was a very bad idea.

It all came flooding back to me. The nightmare of being in this popular temple of cheap, fast consumerism. The palaver of the product numbers, the shelving downstairs, hauling stuff onto trollies.

I pictured myself having a meltdown at the till in Ikea in north-west London years beforehand. Having filled a trolley to breaking point, I got to the till and realised that I did not need one single thing in it. I started to actually cry and ended up abandoning it. I stuffed down two Swedish hot dogs before spending 45 minutes trying to find a taxi to come to the edge of an industrial state. The hot dogs were good but not worth it.

‘Let’s leave,’ I said to my husband. ‘Immediately.’

It was one of those rare soulmate moments. ‘Can we go?’ he asked. ‘Just like that?’

‘Yes,’ I said — no stopping for scented candles, blue plastic colanders, retro curtain fabrics — ‘let’s just get out of here. NOW!’

We made our break for freedom, pushing past a horde of D4 blondes blocking the oneway pedestrian aisles like they were in BTs. I paused at the cafe but it was too early for hot dogs.

‘Never again,’ I said and vowed to ring my wonderful Mayo man-with-van who, for a few hundred quid, will go to Ikea, negotiate its mystifying sales process and deliver stuff to our home. I cannot handle that type of stress any more.

We got into the car and looked at each other. We were both thinking the same thing. We couldn’t possibly just drive straight home. Would we head for a nearby shopping centre and splash out on Marks & Spencer’s goodies that we can’t get in Mayo? There might be a COS or a Topman we could potter around?

We could head into town and treat ourselves to a fancy lunch and browse record shops and Brown Thomas — or simply enjoy the glamour of the capital. After all, we lived there for the first few years of our marriage.

We didn’t say this out loud to each other. I don’t know how we knew it, but neither of us really wanted to go shopping. Certainly not enough to brave parking. Or queuing. Or traffic. Or anything to do with the city at all.

We are now, both of us, resolutely countryfolk. That does not mean to say that we drive tractors or wear Wellington boots as a matter of course, or own cows or livestock of any description. Our ‘countryness’ manifests itself almost exclusively through our laid-back attitudes and an absolute inability to deal with the random stresses that city life brings such as busy pavements, parking problems and traffic.

‘Home?’ he said, turning the key in the ignition. ‘Please,’ I said. We stopped in McDonald’s in Longford for lunch. It was hot and crowded, but we could handle it.