A load of Pooh

Well that's another week past, and we're now 14 weeks, heading towards 15. After my chastening experience at the maternity hospital last week, I can happily report I haven't encountered any fiery fearsome midwives this week, and my self-confidence is now recovered to the extent that I can get up from the sofa without furtively looking around to see if I'll get away with it. Woof!

It's been a busy old time though, and we now have (the vast majority of) the nursery done.

It must have been back in April-time that myself and my lady went to Makro for a nosey about. This was at a time when babies were not really at the forefront of our minds, although we saw a beautiful 3-piece set of nursery furniture. A five foot high wardrobe, a dresser with baby changer and a cot. All in an easy-to-assemble-slot-together-no-nails-no-hinges-no-hammers-and-no-swearing format. We admired, we cooed, we said "not in a million years at over £200 for each item!" and then we forgot about them really. We didn't need baby furniture after all, and it was out of our price range.

Fast forward 7 months, and our spare bedroom, which we had hardly touched since moving in 5 years ago, was all of a sudden most definitely needed. A lick of paint, a new dado rail, the old carpet up (and God, our dog really had gone to town on bits of it, so that was way past time anyway), and new carpet down (which is nicer than the newish one we got for our own room!)

The old chest of drawers was absolutely wrecked (apparently I shove things in to the point of daftness which killed the structure of the thing), and the wardrobe was a rickety relic from the bloke we bought the house from. They were both dismantled and taken down to the local skip, leaving us with the need to replace them. No rush we thought, back in September...

Fast forward to the end of last week and we realised that my folks are due up in (as it was then) a week. We have no carpet and no bedroom furniture, although the bed's pretty comfy! We got ourselves an inexpensive carpet ordered and fitted, leaving ourselves with just the furniture to find. We figured one of those cheap canvas wardrobes would be ok, and maybe a chest of drawers that is similar, so we headed back to Makro. Personally I didn't think it would have been worth going there, but it's close, and it meant a walk around other cool stuff.

I hadn't realised that pregnancy had given my wife such perception. She headed completely the opposite way to the normal way we would normally have gone, leaving me in her wake, to a pallet where the Pooh furniture was still standing, with a big A-Frame sale poster above it. And a reduction. A huge reduction. A massive reduction. £60 for each of the three bits of furniture. £180 all in, less than a third of the original price! Wahay!! We'll have those please!! And even better remember, it's an easy-to-assemble-slot-together-no-nails-no-hinges-no-hammers-and-no-swearing format.

So we (somehow) squished the 6 boxes into the back of a small Honda Civic and drove them home to get them set up - and I did the dresser and the wardrobe in less than 10 minutes!! Oh my, how this baby thing is going to be a cinch! We didn't do the cot as my dad won't fit into it and the sides would be a bit high for him to clamber out of even if he did, so that'll wait until they've been and gone.

But here's the best bit, well, the two best bits. Firstly, we compromise on a number of things for the house, but this was our first choice of furniture so it was great to get it.

Secondly, these sets are on sale on the Internet, through respectable retailers at over £700 the set!!!!

So what was the point really of this blog. I guess it's to gloat that we got a bargain. Usually it's our friends who land on their feet and we are left in the starting blocks. Not this time!!

And so, I have a week off work now to admire our handiwork in the nursery (as we can genuinely call it now, resplendent in Pooh transfers) and to count down the days to week 15.

And so, it's goodnight from Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, Roo and me. Night night.