the new normal

On Thursday the Eldest and I went to Ikea.
We spent 1.5 hours putting all kinds of essential items, that we have only been able to dream about for months, into our trolley.
We were beyond excited.
Jodes was planning a total revamp of her bedroom at home. Followed by a total revamp of her room in Studentville from September.
Then we saw the queue to pay.
It went from the tills, through the entire length of the Self Service Warehouse, round the extra warehouse corner bit and into Plants where it did a Disney style zig zag before winding it's way through Candles and Miscellaneous Kitchen Equipment then through Picture Frames and Wall Art and all the way to the end of Lighting...as far as the eye could see.
At that point we estimated it would take around 2 hours to get to the front so we had a strop, dumped the trolley of prized possessions and ceremoniously left.
Empty handed.
And very sad.

On Friday we went to the pub for the Niece's birthday.
We'd booked a table in the outdoor dining area and were told we could stay there till closing time.
We had a lovely time.
But we only had 3 drinks due to it being table service only. SLOW table service.
We weren't allowed to move about. And there was a toilet monitor making sure only one person at a time went into the loos.
When it started raining we were ok cos we were under the shelter bit. But the people in the outdoor outdoor area either got wet or went home.
Then last orders turned out to be 10pm.
WTF 🤷🏼‍♀️
So we just went home too.

Today the Eldest and I painted our new shed. 
We didn't paint it these colours.
We painted it grey.
But I have ordered some neon yellow paint for the window frames to jazz it up a bit.
I could've gone to an actual shop for it but honestly I don't have the energy to queue for ages and walk round in a bloody mask for one tin of paint. So I'll just wait a week for it to turn up.

It's the new normal.
And it's slightly lacking in joy.