Doing My Part for the Swedes

As I expected, my hellebores -- which looked so awful after our freeze about a week ago -- have bounced right back. They're hardy little devils.

Yesterday's big adventure did indeed prove to be the Ikea Shopping Cart Repatriation Project. You may remember that someone abandoned an Ikea shopping cart on our street last week, and it's been sitting in various places on the sidewalk since then. I called Ikea about it last weekend, and they said they'd send someone to collect it, but no one I spoke to acted like they'd ever had to deal with this problem before -- which did not give me high hopes. The nearest Ikea is about four miles away, so how it got here in the first place is a mystery.

Every time I passed it this week, I thought about what to do next. You may say, "Why do you care? What business is it of yours?" And it was NONE of my business, really, except that it made my street look trashy and it bothered me.

I could have just called the council and reported it as rubbish. Maybe they'd have picked it up, and maybe not, but I didn't want to see it just hauled to a landfill. Having once worked in retail I know shopping carts are not cheap, and why waste it?

I thought about trying to take it on a bus, but I'd have to take two buses in order to get to Ikea and that seemed like too much faffing around. I'm not sure a bus driver would even allow it onboard. A taxi would be the easiest (but not cheapest) solution -- if the cart would fit.

So yesterday I downloaded a taxi app that I'd been meaning to get anyway, and called a black cab. It rolled up and the driver readily agreed to take me and the shopping cart to Ikea. It fit in the car with room to spare.

Here we are en route. The driver's name was Bernard. He was very curious about why I was taking on this project, and I told him I had no confidence that Ikea would do it themselves. He probably thought I stole the cart in the first place.

He asked where I was from, and we chatted about Florida -- he said he'd driven all over the state, "from the Keys to Tallahassee." He seemed incredulous that I would leave there to live in London. (I get that a lot. I actually left New Jersey for London, but never mind.)

In 15 minutes or so, we rolled up to Ikea. I hopped out and took a quick picture. "Should I smile?" said Bernard. (As you may be able to see, he did.)

I paid him and he rolled away, and I wheeled the shopping cart...

...into an empty trolley bay and left it there. Problem solved! The store was just opening but I didn't go inside. (Bernard said I should go in and tell them what I'd done, and maybe they'd give me a voucher. But again, too much faffing around.)

I'd brought my camera along, so I decided to take a photo walk back home again. (In my mind, this helped justify the £29 expense of the taxi ride.)

I started in Neasden and walked the four miles through Dollis Hill, Willesden Green and Cricklewood. I got lots of photos which I will no doubt be sharing here and on Flickr.

After I got back home, the rest of the afternoon was uneventful. I did a lot of reading, trying to catch up on blogland. I walked Olga, who had a wonderful day because...

...she found a PIZZA on the sidewalk! Yes, I let her have a slice, even though I'm sure pizza is not the healthiest thing for dogs. (Just as it's not the healthiest thing for people.) I'm sure she would have eaten it all if I hadn't dragged her away.

Finally, last night, Dave and I watched Ridley Scott's "Napoleon" on Amazon. Well, I did -- Dave fell asleep. (To be fair, he falls asleep during most movies.) It was interesting -- I know very little about the Napoleonic era despite reading "War and Peace" and harboring a desire to visit remote St. Helena myself. Joaquin Phoenix gave an understated performance -- he seemed like he was playing himself dressed as Napoleon -- but Rupert Everett stole the show as General Wellington at Waterloo, and Vanessa Kirby did a great job as Josephine.