“I’ve decided to take a few days off,” says my husband casually. “Perhaps we should spend the day together without the children.” Great idea I think to myself seeing as most of our conversation these days is dominated by sleep deprivation and whose turn it is to take out the rubbish. Thankfully Granny also thinks it is a good idea and nervously agrees to have the children despite it being half term and Grandpa being away on business.
The day before our big break my husband asks if I have booked a nice restaurant and were we going for a gentle walk along the Dorset coastline? “We’re going to Ikea,” I mutter. “WHAT?” he shrieks. “We spend our first day on our own together in years and we’re going to Ikea.” I spend the rest of the day convincing him that an Ikea trip is something you just cannot do with children and I needed some support in deciding upon my toy storage unit. After much convincing he reluctantly agrees to the trip on the condition that he does not have to go near an Allen key.
As we pull into the car park he says, “We need to stay focused in here.” It is clear he does not share my joy of mulling over different storage styles without children and straying off the shopping list. At the entrance we are greeted by the first Ikea-dressed sitting room. My husband’s eyes light up at the size of the plasma television nestled into smart high-tech media shelving. He reclines on the L-shaped leather sofa, puts his feet up on the perfectly parked poof and closes his eyes. I sit down next to him and start chatting about the Christmas holidays. We spend the next few hours walking from room to room in a distinctly unfocused way lying on sofas and generally catching up on the past few months. We even browse through the toy boxes arm in arm.
We witness a number of other couples bickering over the choice of clip frames, however we remain positively calm during our Ikea experience. In fact, in a strange way we affectionately rekindled our relationship amongst the storage boxes and array of tea lights at Ikea. As we pull out of the car park with the car bulging with boxes, my husband says, “That was great. We must come here again soon.”
