Tackling the Ikea maze

My beautiful new Ikea Le Creuset knockoff. I love it. We seasoned it this evening, and tomorrow Bobby's going to use it to make pancakes. Not only is it pretty, but it's solid enough to kill burglars with, if necessary. We bought it because our Calphalon frying pan is losing its non-stick coating, and we were worried about what ghastly poisons we might be ingesting along with our oh-so-healthy stirfried veg.

The trip to Ikea was, as usual, a mix of pleasure and pain. We got there really early and had a yummy (and cheap) breakfast in the cafe. And we found the things we wanted quite easily. (New bedside lamps, because Sophie accidentally smashed our old ones to smithereens last week, a light shade for the loft bathroom, and of course the beautiful frying pan.) And then we meandered along, looking at various bits and pieces until we found ourselves at the end bit where you collect your flatpack furniture, and realised that we'd somehow skipped out the textile section. The section where Sophie wanted to spend her pocket money. (She now owns Stephen's old room, and her old duvet cover clashes with the paint colour). So we had to defy all the arrows and swim back against the tide through crowds of shoppers (the husbands all looking sullen, and the wives all looking implacably determined) until we found the duvet section. We'd bypassed it when we accidentally took a shortcut out of the blind section. Luckily, once we'd made it there, Soph managed to find a duvet cover which she liked, and which was within her price-range. So it was all a bit more exhausting that we'd bargained on.

But I do love our new pan.