No real news, just an update

I realised that I haven't blogged much recently, just haven't had the time. And before any of you critics out there say to me - you haven't posted on your blog recently, I will just say in adavnce - where is your blog??

So what has been happening recently?

• Moved house to Chorleywood and settling in nicely
  
• Mum and Sheila came to visit and they were a great help with sorting the garden out - thanks!
  
• Theresa has been working very hard with help from me on important stuff regarding Hannah's new school - fingers crossed
  
• Sophie's summer fair last week, complete with circus - excellent fun
  
• Daniel's summer fair this week, which should be fun - theme is "The Olympics"
  
• trying to organise the regulars for this year's Fantasy Football auction - but t is a bit like herding cats
  
• Watching some football, enjoyed the Germany v Turkey game
  
• Thinking about a holiday, really must do something about booking that
  
• Enjoying driving my car with the top down through all these lovely country lanes around Chorleywood
  
• Work, work, work, work etc.
  

That will do for now, more soon, maybe...

Ikea Online - A long time coming but not worth the wait

After another pain/pleasure experience at shopping in Ikea this weekend, I thought I would try out their online site.

I noticed recently that you can now order online from their site, but unfortunately i wanted to buy wardrobes and you can order everything to go inside the wardrobe, but not the actual wardrobe frame - really useful.

So Theresa and I visited our nearest Ikea this weekend and found a very helpful chap in the wardrobe department who helped us design the wardrobes and all the accessories. Unfortunately, some of the thing we wanted were not in stock - but that's Ikea for you. So he printed out a very helpful list of items in stock and where to go in the warehouse to find them.

Off we went down to the outer region of hell known as the Ikea warehouse on Sunday afternoon. After losing our way several times and trying to find things that were not where they were supposed to, we were missing only one item, well 5 x one item - and of course - it was out of stock - despite what the computer thought, none were to be found.

After returning home I thought I would see if I could order the missing items online and was very pleased to see that I could - at first. it was when I started the registration and payment process that the major problem was discovered - and it was a big one. Expected delivery date of my items was 26 August 2008.

Yes that's right - August - almost 2 and a half months away.

So, Ikea listen up - if Amazon can deliver me an item I order today at 4pm by tomorrow 1pm, perhaps you should think about trying a bit harder.

Or maybe it is a deliberate strategy, offer an online service and make it look like you care about your customers, but not actually offer a service that anybody would actually want to use and save a lot of money with all that mucking around with supply chains and deliveries.