How to... Go to IKEA

IKEA is a rite of passage. You know you are a proper grown-up when your idea of “Saturday shopping” ceases to mean trying on forty pairs of high heels with your best mate and starts to mean purchasing industrial quantities of paper napkins in a giant blue and yellow aircraft hangar while your significant other trails forlornly behind you.

There are a number of Universal Truths about IKEA.

1) Nobody has ever left without buying a 100-pack of tea lights (females) or a pack of 10 AA batteries (males).

2) The lunacy of some prices means that otherwise unappealing purchases become absolute “can’t miss” items. The pets eat from horrible little beige bowls I wouldn't have chosen in a million years, but they were 39p each. 39p! Other cheapo items you may suddenly decide you can't live without include scissors, wine glasses, washing-up brushes and ersatz Tupperware containers.

3) If aliens landed and wished to study our species, they could do worse than IKEA cafes. All human life is there: all ages and classes seem content to mingle in a vaguely depressing school-canteen-like affair to get their fix of well-priced meatballs and Daim cake. I myself am a big fan of IKEA chips, but portion sizes are heartbreakingly variable. I suspect staff are trained to dish them out according to the customer’s size. This would explain why my chip allocation is barely into double figures, while Captain Lardy’s on the next table are falling off his plate. I sound bitter and indeed I am. Next time I will wear two jumpers.

4) No matter how many blue bags you have bought in the past you will never remember to take one with you, meaning you either fork out another 75p or play a fun but perilous game we have christened “IKEA Buckaroo”.

5) Men really, really hate going to IKEA. If you listen carefully you can hear their doleful murmurs of “More chuffing pillows” or “How long does it take to choose a bleddy bath mat, the footie's on soon.” Only take your husband to IKEA if you are very secure in your marriage, or he has done something he needs to make up to you.



NB There was a hilarious but very sweary IKEA map doing the rounds last month - click at your own risk!

Resolutions update, 13 weeks in

I will stop using “I’m only taking the dog for a walk” as an excuse to go out looking like Worzel Gummidge’s scruffier cousin.

Erm, I kept it up for two weeks them reverted to my Compo-like ways. Best not mentioned. Success: 1/10

I will not get hopelessly drunk in the kitchen as a Pavlovian reaction to hearing “Sometime Around Midnight” by Airborne Toxic Event.

Achieved on two occasions! Success: 10/10

I will come up with a semi-convincing answer to the question “So, what have you been doing with yourself all day?”

Realised there's absolutely no point doing this, because however comprehensive a list is supplied the husband interrogator will scan it with a slight sneer that suggests they could have done it in half the time AND gone for a 10 mile jog, even if you know they haven't operated an iron since 2007. Success: 5/10

I will NEVER again use Cambridge park-and-ride.

Achieved. By not having gone to Cambridge. 10/10.

I will not buy any more body lotion until my current stockpile of nine unopened tubs is used up.

Achieved, but a struggle. Superfluous day cream was bought instead. Success: 8/10.

I will not go through my parents’ fridge, sighing heavily as I discard bottles of ketchup that expired in 2008 and miscellaneous furry cheeses. In fact, I will stop commenting on other people’s hygiene full stop, as it is surely only a matter of time before somebody punches me on the nose.

Achieved, by the hand of fate. Poor old Mum broke her ankle and by the time I went to visit, my aunt had cleared out the fridge. It was quite a shock to find it full of edible food.

I also maintained a fixed smile when someone was banging on about there being no need to use washing powder because some weird hippy eco-pellets that "aerate the water" do the job just as well. (These have been proven by Which? Magazine to be no better than nothing. But my smile did not slip.)

Success: 9/10. One point deducted for judging her inside.

How to... Enjoy horoscopes

Obviously nobody with more intelligence than a daffodil actually "believes" in horoscopes, but a lot of otherwise rational people seem to read theirs anyway. Like mediums, the astrologer's only secret is to generate stuff that is so open-ended that it could apply to anyone. (If Shelley Von Strunckle predicts that I will experience changes that are unsettling at first, but ultimately beneficial, one more time, I will run naked down the A6.)

Here are your stars for this week - let's face it, they have just as much chance of coming true as any others.

Aries: on Thursday you will be startled by a pheasant. Lucky outfit: pyjamas.

Taurus: a tall dark stranger will come to read your electricity meter. Don't leave your handbag in sight when you make him a cup of tea. Lucky musical: Oklahoma.

Gemini: have you checked your tyre pressures lately? You really should, you know. Lucky bath salts: lavender.

Cancer: on Friday you will cook a disappointing breakfast, but Saturday's will be much nicer. Lucky country: Germany.

Leo: all eyes will be on you, Leo, when you accidentally get toilet paper stuck to your foot in a public toilet. Lucky Revel: coffee flavour.

Virgo: you've been overdoing it. Try to relax a bit more. Have you considered taking up macramé? Lucky utensil: fish slice.

Libra: usually the “beautiful” sign of the zodiac, you will suffer an unsightly facial blemish midweek. Try not to pick at it. Lucky tree: sycamore.

Scorpio: a slipper-related accident is waiting to literally trip you up. Keep two 9s dialled on your mobile, just in case. Lucky TV gameshow: Pointless.

Sagittarius: you will have a lovely surprise when you change your duvet cover. Lucky scratch card: Scrabble.

Capricorn: check your change in Holland and Barrett. An otherwise uneventful week. Lucky supplement: Glucosamine.

Aquarius: you will get the urge to rearrange your living room furniture. Get your son round to help in case you trigger an attack of lumbago. Lucky fruit: pear.

Pisces: make sure you chew your food thoroughly to avoid mishaps on Wednesday. Lucky Monopoly token: ship.

I think Shreddies suck, actually.

I'd like to apologise for the sudden appearance of ads on this site. Wordpress, the hosting site, did not warn me they would appear, and the only way for me to get rid of them is to pay $30 a year for an upgrade, which frankly ain't gonna happen!

(Other breakfast cereals are available.)

How to... Tell if you live in the country

Sometime in the 19th century, country living suddenly became less a sign of woeful unsophistication, more the rural idyll to which a nation aspired. Nowadays any home sited towards the edge of a suburban housing development is described as “semi-rural” and you only have to back onto a scrubby patch of wasteland to have the estate agency frothing at the mouth at your “rolling countryside views”.

So how do you know whether you’re a real bumpkin, or just playing at it? Our handy quiz is here to help.

Question 1. Wellies are:
A) a crime against fashion
B) cute for festivals (but you’d only be seen in Hunter or Le Chameau)
C) your footwear of choice for five months of the year. You only buy cheapies because you know they all split after 6 months anyway.

Question 2. You run out of milk. Do you:
A) Nip out to Starbucks
B) Walk to the corner shop
C) Grudgingly get in the car and drive 12 miles round, cursing yourself for having allowed this to happen.

Question 3. How well do you know your neighbours?
A) Wouldn't recognise them.
B) We exchange Christmas cards, and occasionally the kids play football together.
C) I turned up on their doorstep in my bathrobe for a shower when the hot water broke. They didn't bat an eyelid.

Question 4. Mud is:
A) That embarrassing 70s band your Dad used to like
B) Horrid, horrid, horrid.
C) The inevitable patina of your house and car between October and March.

Question 5. Describe your takeaway options.
A) Manifold.
B) We can get pizza, Chinese and Indian delivered.
C) Once a week I drive 3 miles out to the mobile chip van.

RESULTS

Mostly As: An urbanite through and through.
Mostly Bs: You are as suburban as Terry and June. Your privet hedge is neatly trimmed and your Joules wellies fool no-one.
Mostly Cs: Congratulations, you are a fully fledged country dweller! You will probably die from being trampled by cows, but you wouldn't want it any other way.

Beaches

Having grown up on the Suffolk Heritage Coast, I always think of myself as a beach lover. That is, until I get to a beach. In the post-Christmas gloom, many of you will be thinking about booking beach holidays. Don't do it without reading on!

Remember all the photos in your holiday brochure would have been taken with expensive lenses and filters, crucially, BEFORE EVERYONE GOT UP. In Cala Galdana two years ago, the beach beyond my balcony was identical to the turquoise-hued dream in the brochure - except that there was approximately one person per square yard on it. Trying to get near the sea was rather like trying to get a drink during a theatre interval, except with more jiggling sunburned flesh.

As someone deeply uncomfortable with exposed skin (my ideal beach outfit would be a babygro, with feet) I spend most of my time south of Dover in a state of acute embarrassment. I remember laying Margaret Rutherford-like, in a full-length sundress on the beach in Sharm-el-Sheikh, staunchly ignoring a topless Italian aerobics class two metres away. Wherever I choose to deposit my towel, I guarantee that within 10 minutes a pair of nubile and uninhibited teenagers will begin playing ping-pong right next to me and sometimes, over me. Oddly, my husband never seems bothered.

Worst still is France. Elderly naturists lurk round every rock and cove (nearly always male.) In Brittany I was confronted with such a specimen at the base of a cliff. I could either saunter nonchalantly past him or head straight out to sea. “I stand by my decision” I remember thinking, as the water closed in over my shoulders.

UK beaches are great as long as you keep your coat on. It has been scientifically proven that nobody has ever felt warm in Aldeburgh.

All in all I conclude that I AM a beach lover, given that I am looking at it through the wound-down window of a car, preferably with a bag of chips. Roll on summer!

Real resolutions

I will stop using “I’m only taking the dog for a walk” as an excuse to go out looking like Worzel Gummidge's scruffier cousin.

I will not get hopelessly drunk in the kitchen as a Pavlovian reaction to hearing “Sometime Around Midnight” by Airborne Toxic Event.

I will come up with a semi-convincing answer to the question “So, what have you been doing with yourself all day?”

I will NEVER again use Cambridge park-and-ride.

I will not buy any more body lotion until my current stockpile of nine unopened tubs is used up.

I will not go through my parents’ fridge, sighing heavily as I discard bottles of ketchup that expired in 2008 and miscellaneous furry cheeses. In fact, I will stop commenting on other people's hygiene full stop, as it is surely only a matter of time before somebody punches me on the nose.





NB This list has been accused of being under-aspirational. I can only say that that person obviously doesn't realise how addicted I am to scruffiness, fridge-tutting and the purchase of unnecessary toiletries.