Friday night: Ikea Croydon
The words are enough to provoke a glimmer of fear in even the hardest man's eyes, which is why they almost always prefer going down to the pub for a few cheeky beers. However, the gf and I decided that we would quite like to have:

• New dining room table
• New chairs for said table
• Bookcase
• CD/DVD rack
• Armchair for spare room
• Blinds for bathroom
• Filing cabinet
• etc, etc, etc.

Highlights: A relatively stress-free time. Friday nights are probably the best time, as you get a lie-in the next day (unless you are the gf, who sadly had to work) and it's not so ludicrously busy. The only slight annoyance was the lack of food; we should have really paused at some point for a quick sandwich or (god help me) Ikea hot dog. As it was, the hunger drove us onwards.

Lowlights: The continual "will they have it in stock" annoyance: I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I've been to Ikea many times and they never seem to have the birch CD rack that I want in stock. How hard can it be? Also, having to wait for half an hour for some poor sod to find me the last armchair in existence - boring and stressful.

Annoyingly the slight guilt at purchasing under-priced furniture is assuaged by the joy of having nice clean shiny Swedish tables and chairs adorning my lounge. Solid, well-designed, attractive furniture that's cheap and you only have to briefly endure hell to get it? Why not?

Saturday
Morning was spent sleeping and then reinstalling software onto my new HD after the old one nearly snuffed it. Managed to resuscitate my old iTunes library so I've not lost all my ratings and so forth. Hurrah!

Afternoon consisted of sanding down the wooden windowsills, then slapping a load of wood stain on them in the hope of preventing them from rotting and falling off. Similar work needs to be done on the upstairs but we've yet to find a long enough ladder. Also did the back gate (inside). Followed by: assembling Ikea furniture (table, two chairs, armchair).

Evening: pub!

Sunday
Up, straight over to Sainsburys, back with tons of food. The gf prepared lunch while I wood-stained the outside of the back gate. Lunch, then on a bus to Kingston to buy lots of nifty clothing for summer wear and trips to Australia. Managed to buy one very bright T-shirt which I'll no doubt be too shy to actually wear in public, one more subtle one, and some rather stylish lightweight trousers.

Back home, prune overgrown bits of garden, water excessively considering proposed hosepipe ban, rip unstable legs off barbecue and replace with some bricks, start fire, burn meat, eat, and drink Corona with a slice of lime.

Executive summary
Did loads of stuff, had a good time!