Part of me was excited by the parcel that came for me unexpectedly the other day. It was a proper courier-style plastic bag that contained a brown A4-sized padded envelope that contained a white A5-sized padded envelope that contained a normal letter-sized envelope that contained a new bank card, sent all the way from the UK. What lengths they had gone to to ensure security, I thought to myself. Pity then, my thought continued, that the postman had wedged the parcel into the door jamb of my flat and left it there for any Tom, Dick or Harry to steal!!

I didn't so much need a new bank card as a new bank account, after recent trips to Ikea. In a fit of tidyness I finally decided I would buy a chest of drawers for my kitchen. It's been bugging me since before I even moved in that there's only one drawer - and a titchy one at that - in the built-in kitchen in my flat. Some of my cutlery and utensils don't even fit in it!

The thought of a big fat set of drawers for me to store all my pots & pans in, coupled with a big expanse of extra workspace to cook on, has been smouldering in the back of my mind for a good few months now. And now I've finally given in to it. My flat abounds with Ikea flat-packed boxes, telescopic legs and sundry items. All I've got to do now is build the buggers!

The first Ikea trip was fun inasmuch as I hadn't been for ages and it was out of the ordinary: rather than just shop, Christian & I got there early on Saturday and actually had breakfast there (smoked salmon and a coffee for pennies). The obligatory post-purchase hotdog, and the freebie biccies in the Swedish grocer's area, turned the Ikea trip into more of a culinary voyage than a DIY pilgrimage.

My second Ikea trip in as many weeks - this time primarily for Michaela, but I succumbed and bought a few more bits & pieces too - was necessarily less novel, but still managed to be exciting in a way: Michaela was on a tight timeline to get to her friends' place for dinner, so our dash around the warehouse felt like a cross between Challenge Anneka and Supermarket Sweep. And then I had the unusual feeling of travelling on public transport whilst bearing armfuls of Ikea stuff; Michaela didn't have time to drop me home, so I had to S-Bahn & tram it.

Still, once home I dropped all that rubbish and headed straight back out, to a Greek restaurant with Tom & Walter and a bunch of Tom's work friends. It was bizarre to be out & about in a smoke-free Germany. The law changed on 1st January, and now (at last!) smoking is not permitted in bars & restaurants. There's been a lot of hoo-haa about it in the media, but I'm sure it'll die down soon enough and people will soon forget what it was like to wade through clouds of noxious smoke just to get to the bar.

I ate bizarre meats at a Mongolian wok bar the other night, at Phil's final English Stammtisch dinner. Bénédicte was there again too, and we both enjoyed piling zebra, crocodile, springbok and antelope into our bowls for the cooks to prepare on the hot plate. It was too much food - we all went for the eat as much as you like option, so we could try the different sauces too - but washed down by the most divine mojitos I've had the pleasure to sip on in many a long year!

Oh yeah, and I went swimming too. See? I can be sporty...