IKEA

Above - it's Ingvar Kamprad - the founder of IKEA. Who needs church? Who needs a hobby when you can visit an IKEA store! I went to the IKEA just west of Nottingham this evening. It was puzzling how, when you got inside, a shiny grey path with arrows on it, guided you through this maze of home furnishings. How disorienting!

I was with our son, Ian. He wanted a new table and chairs for his kitchen. We made a note of his choices and the relevant aisle numbers for collection and before too long we were back on the M1 motorway heading northwards to Sheffield. It seems as if the motorway lanes have been narrowed for the last five years with a 50 mph speed limit in operation as unseen workers create a fourth lane on each side of the carriageway. At the rate they are going, I estimate that completion will happen somewhere between 2020 and 2025. Not long now! The lanes are so narrow that when you are in the middle lane sandwiched between two trucks, you feel like a hotdog in a bun. It's scary!

Back to IKEA. Where does the name come from? Well you take the I and the K from the founder's name,and the E from the farm where he grew up -Elmtaryd, and the A from his former home county in southern Sweden - Agunnaryd. And there you have it - IKEA. A place of domestic dreams. Take home a flatpack and you are buying into Scandanavian style and easy living. Thank Ingvar that we went there on a Wednesday evening and not on a rainy Sunday afternoon when hordes of heathens no doubt arrive to indulge in a nice spot of "leisure shopping".