Thursday 30 January 2014

Thursday

9.10am  The children are at school and order has been restored.  It's time to begin a little job I've been dreading for days.  Building a bed for the littlest boy from a flatpack, which has been delivered in no less than eight packages.

9.30am  The packaging is off.  It's no longer to possible to move around the kitchen because of the amount of cardboard.  The pieces are strewn about the living room, which is where the delivery man left them.  "Room Of Your Choice" was £20 extra.  Getting the thing made was £120 extra.  I'm starting to wonder if there's a reason for that.

10.00am  The nuts and bolts are sorted into about fifteen different dishes and labelled.  The actual instructions are disconcertingly brief.  One and a half pieces of A4.  I stare at them for a while and start sweating lightly.

10.30am  I carry some pieces upstairs to the littlest boy's room and do some more staring and some thinking.


The instructions start with two perfectly made end pieces.  My end pieces need construction and are in about sixteen different pieces.  The instructions do not explain how to put them together at all.  I start muttering.

11.00am  I've partly put the ends together, but it's now apparent I've done it wrong.  I take them apart again and put them back together differently.  It turns out they're still wrong.  I take them apart again and mutter a bit more.  I put them together in another variation.  I should have added some more bits in first.  I deconstruct them and I'm almost back where I started.

11.40am  The phone rings and it's the school.  I'm not to worry, the children are fine, but the middle one has fallen on his face and broken his glasses.  He is now unable to see.  I locate his old pair and take them to school, collect the broken ones and once home ring the optician.  I love the optician, and I love how eye tests and glasses and replacement glasses for children are all completely free.  It takes me but a moment to order another pair.  A high point in the day I think.

12.10pm  I try and get back in the zone.  It is becoming clear that the littlest boy (whose existing bed had been taken apart and removed) will not be sleeping in his room tonight.  Oddly, he had anticipated this when I explained to him a day or two ago that I would be making a new bed for him.  He said something like, "Ooh, so I'll be sleeping in your bed for a night!"

Other half locates a video on You Tube showing how to put this exact bed together.  He also rings the company.  Astonishingly he gets to speak to an actual person, who is incredibly helpful and emails more instructions.  I watch the video.  It has soothing music, a calming voiceover and a woman with an incredible French manicure smoothly putting the bed together.  I breath deeply and unclench.  Things previously unfathomable have been explained and I feel a slight glimmer of hope.

1.10pm  I eat a two cheese sandwiches and then a peanut butter sandwich and some salad and a strawberry yoghurt and spend some time wondering why the manufacturer didn't bother mentioning the enlightening You Tube video in their instructions.  Just teasing us maybe.

1.40pm  I clear up from lunch and put everything flatpack-related where it will be out of the way of the children who will be home in a couple of hours.  The day has slipped by and so far I've accomplished almost nothing.  Back to the flatpack.

3.00pm  With the help of the video things are finally going together, although I still only have two ends and two sides.  It's a captain's bed, with four drawers and a cupboard underneath.  I know, I know, what was I thinking.  But when I was ordering it, it seemed like a really good idea.  Somewhere for the littlest boy to keep his treasures, because he does love his treasures.  I suddenly realise what the time is.  School run.

3.25pm  The littlest boy is out first, full of happy joy as ever.  The middle boy is a bit pink from recorder practice and with a slightly bruised nose from the glasses-breaking incident.   I explain to the littlest boy that his bed isn't finished.  He doesn't display any surprise.  I suggest he sleeps on his mattress in the top room with the guinea pigs, and point out how it will be exactly like camping.  He is thrilled.  We head home and I make drinks for all.

4.00pm  The phone trills and I panic, football officially ends at 4 and I'm still at home, because it always goes on until 4.15pm.  It's a text from school.  Year 5 parents (of which I am one) are reminded of the Year 5 cake sale tomorrow, to which their children are to bring cakes.  Wha...???  I check the calendar.  No mention of a cake sale.

4.10pm  I wait at school for ten minutes for the biggest boy.  He's the last out, as always, and in a foul mood.

5pm  Tea is fast and early-ish as I need to take the middle boy to buy a warm coat.  He's been off colour recently and unusually is feeling the cold.  He's been shivering all the way to school in the mornings.  His thin coat isn't enough.  After tea I manage to take him to the shops without his brothers, who for some reason are desperate to come too.  I make a mental note - next time I need them to come with me I must try and leave them at home.  We find a good coat and I part with a good chunk of money.

6.50pm  We arrive back home.  The biggest boy is already in his pyjamas and the littlest boy has scratches on both sides of his face.  I don't enquire too deeply.  The last hour or so is fairly smooth.  The biggest boy is in disgrace, the middle boy has a new coat and the littlest boy is going camping.  I ponder cake choices.

8.45pm  All is quiet upstairs.  Downstairs I'm ignoring the drawers and cupboard part of the flatpack.  I'm also ignoring the impending cake sale.  I feel the need for a quiet moment instead of last-minute baking.  I feel the need to share.  Maybe even to rant a little.  Apologies.


28 comments:

  1. I'd have poured a big glass go wine at about 6.51pm! x

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  2. Oh my ....that was NOT a fun day. Had I made a cake for the cake sale, I probably would have eaten it myself. ;-)

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  3. Oh dear. This is the kind of day I've been having all week. It hasn't been a great week. I give you a lot of credit with three boys. I've only got two kids, and only one boy, and I feel like passing out by dinnertime.

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  4. Gadzooks.. that sounds like a very intense project! My husband and DIL put together our gazebo and play structure.. those had a bazillion pieces! ((hugs)), Teresa :-)

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  5. I am relating to you so very much in this moment! My days are filled with diaper changes, fights over toys, and food making and clean up! Like you there are times when i feel like nothing has gotten accomplished or like you something doesn't go as planned! The life of a mom...we all go through this everyday and it is in these moments that we are able to really appreciate those golden days. Best wishes to you tomorrow friend...that it is a wonderful day for you! You had me cracking up about the tutorial and the lady with the nice nails...don't you just love how unrealistic those things are! HA! All the best friend...Nicole xoxo

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  6. Ooh, a blast from the past in my case it was a tall cabin bed with 5 pages of instructions that had been translated from some obscure dialect by an idiot. No internet in those days so I rang the manufacturer who talked us through it on the phone. We had the wrong instructions and got a small refund, enough for a soothing bottle of red. My first and last venture into the world of flat pack.

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  7. I wonder how come you are able to coherently put together such a post - I'd have slammed a few doors and gone to bed with the duvet over my head by about lunch time!! I do hope that today will prove a better day and that the bed will eventually be put together safely and without any parts having been discovered missing. Flat packs are renowned for being complicated and people make a living out of doing it for you though hopefully not at £120 a go!! Hope the boy will like it when it's done and not demand to remain camping!!

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  8. I think I'd probably have thrown the flat pack at somebody about lunch time! Why they don't provide all the instructions you need is anyones guess - maybe they thought you wanted the challenge?!

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  9. I hope today is a better day x

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  10. I wish that I knew why they have to make these blooming things so hard to put together. A few more instructions here and there, mention of the video - which would cost nothing!! - and some pictures would not go amiss would they. GRRRRR!!!! I hope that today goes better for you and that you get the bed finally together. Very impressed with your organisation of the screws and fixings!! I live with someone who just allows them to spread all of the floor - he drives me mad! xx

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  11. Good grief, don't apologise. I would have thrown it out of the window!! I refuse to make flat pack furniture after the infamous chest of drawers incident. Alfie is a whizz at flat pack, so I leave any of that to him and his Dad. After all, they can't bake....

    Leanne xx

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  12. What a day and a half! The flat pack people want you to realise how difficult the construction is so you will relent and pay them to do it! It sounds a bot like the bake-Off technical challenge where only partial instructions are given.

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  13. I hope today is going much smoother than yesterday. It's always the same with flat pack furniture, the manufacturers know how much bad press it gets because it's so hard to put together so you'd think they'd go out of their way to include clear instructions, but they don't.

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  14. Just awful - I can't believe you didn't leave the job of putting a bed together to your husband! I guess its woman power for you, but you could find better things to do with your day! Whew - make two cakes and eat one all by yourself - you deserve it!

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  15. Crikey, what a day! I hope your littlest one enjoyed his 'camping out' at least and you're having a better time of it today x

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  16. I think that after a day like that you're entitled to rant, so there's no need to apologise. I hope that it was a one-off and you don't get another day like that for a long while.
    There's no excuse for providing poor assembly instructions but it does seem the norm doesn't it.
    Flighty xx

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  17. CJ, I applaud your persistence and, as a seasoned flat packer from the school of Ikea and MFI, I'm especially impressed that you didn't stop to eat the whole kitchen after the mornings shenanigans. Isn't is infuriating how the school day cuts the day in half, just as you're getting to grips with things? Your youngest is very astute to realise that everything takes twice as long as you think it will! Hope he enjoyed his 'camping' and that the project was finished smoothly today … although, I've just remembered, you've got the drawers to do - yikes!! Good luck!!

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  18. You are a braver woman than I ... flat packs I generally leave to the Mr ... that way I can always blame him if everything goes pear shaped ;)

    So is the taking of cakes for sales compulsory now? Schools seem to encroach ever further on family's freedoms it seems to me :(

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  19. You have such a lovely way with words, I can see it all in front of me, and you make me smile! Pity I don't live a bit closer, as a seasoned flat pack assembler I'd happily have given you a hand with it! These days my older two fight over putting together a flat pack, I don't get a look-in any more ;-)

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  20. I hope the bed building has gone smoothly today, we only bought flat pack once & said never again! that sounds like a busy day for you!

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  21. I say leave flat packs to the mr then you can blame him when things go PEAr shaped
    Well done take a deep breathe

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  22. This made me giggle, sorry it's just do well written that I think we can all relate in one way or another. Love the lunch break feast, which I will add was very restraint given the circumstances. I to hope the day got better my dear or well shall I say the next day. Hope the bed is built and sorted, they are a nightmare and yes why didn't they share the YouTube link?? Love the situation with opticians, couldn't agree more. Sending much love xoxo

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  23. I'm not surprised you needed a quiet moment and a rant after a day of the flat-pack. My heart often sinks when I'm faced with one and I then see the instructions sent with it. It's no wonder that people often spend out to get the over-priced, ready assembled products.

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  24. Permission to swear. Loudly.

    (but really.. you and I know that that is quite a normal day with three boys right? I'd like to say it gets easier...)

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  25. I think you needed that rant! What a day. I'm still surprised by how short the school day is, how little I seem to achieve in that time. I hope the flat pack bed is now complete. Those sorts of jobs always take four times longer than you think they should. x

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  26. I really enjoyed reading through this. I think we read so often about certain events our blogging friends experience, but I often wonder what other people's days look like. It was very nice to have a peak at one of yours, hour by hour. What a clever way to tell and share stories from your life. I hope the cake turned out alright and the bed too.

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