We headed off to have lunch with some friends of Gravy's and arrived about 10 minutes before them. Lethal. Next door to the restaurant was the Ski Cellar, a mecca for my new obsession with ski wear. 10 minutes later a new pair of ski pants in bright green were mine, for a bargain price...compared to how much they were to begin with, that was. Believe me, you don't want to know. But I live in a ski resort and when I'm not working, I'm skiing, so I think I can justify the investment*.
However, our main task of the day was to go to Ikea, where I intended to buy a duvet. In Canada, people use flat sheets under something called a 'comforter', which is basically a thin synthetic duvet with a fixed and often lurid cover, with possibly a blanket over the top. It's bloody rubbish. Firstly, it's not warm enough, particularly for a winter where temperatures can go down to -30. Secondly, as anyone who is old enough to remember England before duvets became the norm, you invariably wake up with the sheet squished over onto once side, the comforter over to the other, and the rough woollen blanket fallen off the bottom of the bed. Thirdly, thin synthetic duvets do not cover you properly, they just lie over the top of you and create cold gaps either side of you. Last night I was freezing all night so today I practically ran round Ikea in order to buy myself a lovely down duvet.
Naturally they didn't have the cheap one I wanted, nor did they have the slightly more expensive one in the size I wanted, so I ended up spending $72 on a king size, but still, 36 quid for the pleasure of being warm and comfortable at night for the next 5 months is a bargain if you ask me. I had planned to buy a cheap duvet cover - they had a rather unpleasant yellow circley designed one at $12.99 - but spotted a jersey duvet cover in green, which I was naturally unable to resist, despite it being a fair bit more expensive. I also bought a couple of packs of twinkly lights, one red, one green, to put round my windows to make it a little more festive. I hope you like the effect. My room rocks.
After Ikea we went to the Chinook Centre, a big shopping mall, where we planned to go to the IMAX cinema to see Beowulf in 3D. We bought our tickets before browsing round the shops, and returned to discover that, irritatingly in the extreme, they had sold us tickets to the wrong showing. The IMAX 3D version had started half an hour before, and we had tickets to the regular version. The boys were devastated to miss the opportunity to see Angelina Jolie's gold nipples side-swiping their faces, naturally.
The film was purest comedy gold. I'm fairly sure it wasn't supposed to be a comedy, but we laughed our arses off all the way through it. If it wasn't for Ray Winstone's East London accent saying "I'm Beowulf, and I've come to kill your monstaaaahhh", or Beowulf's penchant for removing all his clothes before he fought said monstaaaahhh, necessitating a whole 10 minute sequence where something was always placed strategically in front of his - ahem - tackle, it was Angelina Jolie performing a particular act upon a sword with an inevitable, slightly messy, and surprisingly graphic conclusion. Well worth seeing: 9 out of 10 for comedy value, though only 2 out of 10 for achieving the original aim. My private theory however, particularly given the abundance of British actors in the film, is that they decided to see how utterly ridiculous they could make the film, and still get the Americans to buy into it completely.
Oh, just a quick update before I publish this: I slept last night on my jersey sheets/duvet combo and it was purest heaven.
*I'm doing a good job of justifying this to myself, aren't I?
1 comment:
Looks very cozy!
Post a Comment