Everyone talks about buying an electrical item for Christmas such as a train set or a scalextric, and finding out that, on Christmas day of all days, when there are no shops open other than Alldays, there is no plug!!

Today this happened for me. I got my pennies together and ordered the parts for my brand spanking new PC. The ultimate gaming system, where everything would look pretty and all runs like stink.

The text came while I was at work that it had all arrived, and I counted the minutes until half five, when I could rag it home to assemble it all.

On arriving, I opened the box.. monitor, graphics card, cpu, psu, tower, hard drive, dvd-rw drive, ram .. wahoo all there! No wait.. no .. flaming .. heatsink. I ordered the only CPU with no heatsink.. Maplins better stock them tomorrow or I’m gonna have a hernia.

1st morning in our new house, and I ache all over, even my arse aches!!

Even better - we have a load more flat-pack to put together. We have 3 more Rogers, 1 Ramvik and a Lack. You gotta love the names IKEA gives it’s products - comedy.

The sis and bro in-law are coming over to help install the cooker, they can help with the flat pack - bonus!

Today we finally got our hands on the keys to the house we have been waiting for since December 2005.

The whole day was flat pack hell, surrounded by IKEA boxes, some weighing an absolute ton.

The house isn’t in as good condition as we remember. There are chunks out of the wall / woodwork, but generally we are very happy.

A bottle of champagne and a card awaited us on the kitchen windowsil to thank us for our patience (nearly 8 months of patience). SA better not drink any - absolute lightweight!