As I have now moved out of the house into the London flat, I have had to move my main PC and other storage down here. Working off the laptop on the small, round dining table doesn’t really make sense, and there’s no room for a PC and two monitors on the dining table anyway.

So I decided I needed a desk.

Now given the general theme of the decor at the flat, a cheapo plywood flat-pack desk or computer table from Argos wouldn’t look right so I ventured over to John Lewis at Bluewater a couple of Saturdays ago to see what they had. As expected, the desks on offer were good quality, if a little expensive and this desk seemed to fit the bill (albeit a large bill at £195!):

They checked and said there were none in stock, but they would have one for me to collect on Tuesday (too far out to deliver, apparently). “Never mind,” I thought, “I will be passing on Wednesday, so I can collect it then”. And so it transpired: I arrived around 5.00pm and was told it was in, either at the Customer Collection Point or possibly at the Service Centre. After waiting 45 minutes, I was told they couldn’t find it so they would have to order another one in and could I collect it on Friday? No! I kicked up a fuss about having to come all the way out and back yet again, so the young assistant said he/they would deliver it to me on Friday evening at around 6.00pm.

I left the office early and was at the flat by around 5.30pm. Being really hungry, I rang them to get an up to date ETA to see if I had time to cook and eat tea first. I did: the chap I’d dealt with was off sick and hadn’t put anything like that on the system and no, they couldn’t deliver it as no-one who was insured to do so was there. I went berserk!

So we agreed that I would travel back to Bluewater (out of London on a Friday evening…), collect the desk myself and bring it back, but that they’d refund me half the price – £96 as it transpired – so that’s what I did. The helpful assistant brought the two boxes out to my car and I loaded them in – one flat and one long and thin, which I assumed must be some sort of support rails…

Back at the flat, I unpacked the large, flat box and put the frame together (complete with one knackered bolt thread…) before lifting it into place. Now all I needed was the glass … er … what glass? Yes, despite being boxed up with my name on both, box 1 of 2 was in fact half of a hat and coat stand from the same range and not the glass top and shelves for the desk!

So Saturday morning found me back on the phone to John Lewis at Bluewater. No, I couldn’t come and collect the shelves as I was in Norfolk and yes, they really would have to come and deliver them on Monday evening.

Which they did yesterday. And it is a nice desk. I’ll have to sort out a photo.

Now all I need to do is get the PC to talk to the laptop over the wireless network as it seems not to be able to do so (wired to wireless and without the router I was using back in Norfolk).