An update on the shop...

So, since I last wrote, I am sure that you have all been wondering how we have been getting on with the shop and getting it ready (well, actually, I suppose that you haven't because I don't think that anyone reads this thing!).

I'm going to tell you anyway, whether you like it or not!

So, we went and saw a few companies to decide on a carpet to get and eventually decided on a really nice, helpful company called JJ Consultants. They were really helpful and managed to screed the floor, tackify (I love that word!!) the floor and carpet the floor in record time, sooner than they had estimated. I would recommend them to anybody that asked me about getting a carpet fitted.

Whilst we were waiting for the carpet to be fitted (I even think it might have been before) we went to Ikea and bought some furniture for home delivery. Yes, it was before the carpet was fitted (we were going to store it out the back while we had the carpet done) but on the day of delivery, the delivery driver said that they couldn't get parked so they were taking the furniture away again. This was actually quite good as we did run out of space to store the furniture in!

Ikea was supposed to have phoned my dad back after they could not deliver the furniture, but they did not, so this Monday he phoned them. They told him that they could re-deliver the furniture on Thursday (yesterday, the 8th). So we accepted this date and went down to the shop yesterday at 7am (earliest delivery time) and waited... and waited... and waited. We even waited some more! At 11am my mum wanted to ring the customer services department to find out where we were on the delivery list. She phoned up and spoke to somebody who said that they could not give her that information, so she asked them if they could confirm that it was on a van to be delivered and they told her that they could confirm this information and that they would find out for her. So my mum gave them the details and they tried to find out about our delivery...

The person at Ikea then told my mum that the delivery had been "accidentally" entered into the computer system as being the 8th JULY. Mum was really angry (not really the word for it, but you get the picture) so she gave the phone to my dad, who tried to resolve the problem. However the person on the other end of the telephone at Ikea didn't seem to give a toss whether we had or hadn't received our delivery. My dad then said that he wanted to speak to the manager, but the person couldn't/wouldn't put him through. My dad then said that the person at Ikea had to ring him back within 30 minutes to resolve the problem, or he would go up to Ikea and "cause a stink".

As you will gather, we did not receive a call, so we ended up going to Ikea. My dad spoke to the woman on customer services who spoke to someone on the home delivery desk. The man on the home delivery desk (not the same one that my dad spoke to on the phone) said that he would get the furniture delivered to us ASAP and would ring us with a time and date.

We went back home, after getting some lunch and stuff, then waited for him to call.

Eventually he called and said that our furniture would be delivered to us at 7am today. We were happy with that (well, kind of as it was not the original date that we had planned for) and agreed that it would be when the furniture would have to be delivered. However, I think that we were all a bit unsure whether the furniture would arrive.

This morning, my mum and I got up really early and set off down to the shop to wait for the delivery. Just as we were getting there somebody came along wearing an Ikea uniform. They said that it was their day off but they were here to help with the delivery. They gave the delivery driver instructions to get to the shop and they waited with us. Then the delivery driver phoned him and said that he was lost so the man from Ikea went off to get him as he was within walking distance and told him how to get to us.

So our furniture did arrive in the end, a bit later than expected (7:30am because of the driver getting lost) but it was all there in the end and we were happy that it eventually arrived.

Today, we have been building the furniture up and positioning it where we want it to go. We have not yet built everything, that would take far longer than a day, but I (and everyone else) am so relieved that the furniture eventually arrived. I suppose they do say 3rd time lucky!

I'm off to build some more furniture now and let my mum use the shop computer. I will write again when I next have the time to, but hopefully I shall not have so much to write!

Bye bye

Annie