Mon 25 Apr - Short, but not at all sweet

Here is our day: 

Get up, see dull grey skies.  Brainwave.  Best day ever for doing Ikea run.  If there is such a thing as a best day ever for going to Ikea, particularly when its 150 kilometres away in Ancona. 

But, hey, you do these things when you have shed loads of bath mats, bins, bowls and curtain poles to buy.  And a rather small budget.  A necessary evil, one may say. 

Should have known better. 

We drove for two hours, TWO HOURS!  to get there.   

It wasn't because it was absolutely heaving, it being Bank Holiday Monday and all that.  It was CLOSED.  

CLOSED!  

I'd checked the Internet, even emailed a helpful online assistant called Anna (who is going to die).  I checked and double checked my translation "24/25 Aprile, siamo aperto per la Befana", "We are open for the Epiphany".  

They weren't.  

And I couldn't even phone anyone to shout at them, not having yet got to the "How to Complain" bit in "Italian for Dummies". 

So we had an ice cream, and drove all the way home.  

Late afternoon and the day has now gone.  Wasted. 

I consoled myself by painting the bathroom.  Great. 

Thanks Ikea.  You owe us one.  Big time.