before the garden...bought last night

...And in many ways you may have experienced the scenerio of visiting friends and relatives and saying, hmm...that's a nice bathroom colour. I like the way they have hung that Titian to juxtapose the Canaletto in the hallway. Yes, I do this quite a lot and it has been thanks the house of a friend, rosiepop and especially their Ikea dining table which we filled in our heads for future reference. So, on the way to the Airport last night we took a detour to that little oasis of sweden in Nottinghamshire, The ikea store so big it has its own postcode, to get this wee beasty of a table.

The reasons we went for this table is that with the impending download of our daughter, note how I have techno geek identified pregnancy with software downloading. I am also tempted, if we have another child to name that one, Theaker 2.0. though doubt I'll get this past my wifes quality threshold! That, though, is another story, back to the original. The ide being that are Dining room table is quite large and we felt that with child we would need a little bit more space in the dining room if she needed a craft corner, so to speak, and with my wife, the Genetic chance of our daughter having a craft making streak not less than a mile wide is I think about 98%, this figure I am underestimating to be cautious, but if you do want to know where you can get 600 different shades of coloured card, half a tonne of craft wire. Trust me. Knock here and ask for the crafty wholesaler.

Here is our dining table of old, see how it dominates the room;


whereas thanks to inspiration of hunting big elks in big Volvos in big forest of big pine covered in big snow and a diet of Herring and strong, viking style beer our dining room now looks a little bit like this;



Either that or I have rebuilt the room bigger, this last one may well be a lie. Mind you if you do find yourself in the IKEA store, eat the meatballs there are yummy!!!!!!!!!!