After my reading of the Hermione Lee biography of Edith Wharton, truly magnificent, I needed to rest and recuperate and have various chores to do round the flat and decided just to let my mind have a rest and come back down to ordinary things.
After the visit of my darling daughter Kathryn the other week and having given her my bed as she was recovering from having a cyst dug out of her back and me sleeping on the sofa (with my still aching back) made me realise that this could not continue and so I decided to get rid of my small two seater sofa (nice to look at but uncomfortable) and get a sofa bed. So I hied me off to have a look around and was greeted with cries of rapture by sales assistants in empty furniture stores all looking for a sale. Well, if I had £700 to spare and wanted a super filled, top of the range mattress there was plenty of choice, but all I was looking for was a bog standard sofa bed for the occasional visitor. Lowest price I could find was a slightly dirty one marked down to £400 in one warehouse.
So I turned to IKEA and by coincidence, the new catalogue arrived on my doorstep that very day. Spotted one for £200, that is more like it I thought. So I planned a trip down the M25 to the nearest store and then thought with sinking heart of the queues, the trying to get decent service from the staff (something I have yet to achieve at this store) and the drive home and so on and so on. I knew it had to be done and was not looking forward to it so was very pleased yesterday when dropping into one of these All Purpose Stores to purchase a mirror for my bedroom, spotted there was a furniture sale and lo and behold there was a small sofa bed, just what I was looking for for £300. Apparently the store had had a flood and there was 'water damage'. I lurked and checked and it was not unsightly and I always have throws on my sofa anyway so I pondered. Up came a fresh cheeked young man scenting a sale. I expressed tepid interest in the item and let him give me his spiel etc and after he had been going for a while told him I might buy it, but only if he let me have it for £250. He reacted as if I had stuck a pin in him.
HIm: Oh I can't do that Madam
Me: Yes you can
HIm: I couldn't possibly
Me: Yes you can
Him (wavering): I will have to speak to the manager
Me (cordially): yes do
So he phones through and as the manager on the other end had rather a loud voice I could hear him quite distinctly say, Oh for heaven's sake just get rid of the thing. Wished I had offered £200 when I hear this but decided not to push it.
So the upshot was that they delivered it the next day and, what is more at 9.30 am so I did not have to hang around all day, and they also moved my old sofa out and stored it under the stairs in my apartment block whence it will be collected by a charity on Wednesday, and there it was. Slightly bigger than my last one, but no matter and when I opened it out to have a look at it realised that they had not known the the end of the mattress was very very wet. However, hanging it out my window all day where it got the full force of the glorious sunshine means that it is very nearly dried out and I am very pleased with my purchase.
If you don't ask you don't get. Quite often you get a response in which you are invited to leave the store, but quite often I also get a good response. If you have the confidence to ask for things in a shop you can quite often get them. Every time I bought a new video recorder (ah those far off days), I always made the shop sling in a pack of blank tapes; when I had a new TV delivered with a scratch on it I kept it but made them knock £50 off; when I moved into this flat and bought fridge, freezer and cooker all from the same place at the same time, I made them give me a 10% discount and sling in some saucepans as well.
It might,but I doubt it, also interest you to know that I spent the rest of the day having an almighty clear out and with the wrapping the sofa came in (yards and yards of that stuff they wrap round cases at airports), the cardboard from a small cabinet I had also purchased for the bathroom, plus the polystyrene it was packed in and other boxes that boxes had been delivered in, I spent a merry half hour at the Tip hurling it all in the skips which is tremendous fun.
Then the sofa in the afternoon, two fun mystery books by one Linwood Barclay, full of twists turns and deviousness, which I knew nothing about and given by a friend recently, a PG Wodehouse The Girl on the Boat and feet up. Then in the evening a simply sublime performance of Beethoven's Fidelio, his only opera, on the TV from the Proms which reduced me to tears.
Just off to take the Aged Parent out to Hall Farm for coffee and cake this morning as the sun is shining out of a clear blue sky and it really is a stunning day. This farm has some wonderful animals and thought you might like to see one of their rather endearing pigs having a snooze in the sunshine when Kathryn and I visited last week:
Au reservoir.
