We have to go to IKEA tomorrow! ‘Have to?’, I hear you ask, if you live outside Israel. (At least, I hope I hear you ask, otherwise I can’t continue the blog.) Yes, dear reader, have to: for paper serviettes (napkins), of course, as everyone always does (at least, in Israel, where the serviettes sold in most shops are the size of a sheet of toilet paper, and the thickness of a sheet of tissue paper)., for lunch (of course – no longer as good as it used to be, but still the cheapest hot salmon dish in Israel) and, as always, for at least one latest project.

Incidentally, I find much to admire about IKEA’s marketing. They manage to present as a new and exciting way to shop the concept that customers should collect their own furniture items from the warehouse, deliver them to their own homes, and then construct them themselves. This is a display of such stereotypically Israeli chutzpah that I can never quite believe that IKEA being a Swedish company is not just a story invented by the marketing department.

Offering lunch as a loss leader is a novel ploy that certainly works in Israel; we know people who will drive 45 minutes to IKEA just to eat lunch. However, their most impressive achievement, it seems to me, is that, having identified a niche market in thick, large serviettes, their stores are always packed with people who come for the serviettes, yet never manage to leave without also buying a bed, a wardrobe, a bookcase or, at the very least, a shelf.

So what, I hear you ask, is our latest project? (At least, I hope I hear you ask, as above.)

Well, since you ask, inspired by seeing them at Esther’s, sitting pristinely in the chest of drawers just waiting for a new baby to be changed on the top, the project is drawer insert dividers, or organisers, for our underwear and sock drawers.

I have a sock drawer, in which I neatly compartmentalise my balled pairs of socks into black, brown, dark blue and sundries.

(Sundries, since you ask – and I bless you again for asking – includes: a poppy red pair of socks worn with black trousers, a red silk-finish roll-neck shirt and a grey jacket for a wedding two decades ago…but seldom since; a pair of grey socks emblazoned with ruby-red hot lips, bought for me rather than by me and worn very rarely, you probably won’t be surprised to hear; another grey pair with an image of Grumpy, one of Snow White’s Disney dwarves, bought and worn as above; and a bottle-green pair that go with bottle-green flares that unaccountably shrank in the wash decades ago, and failed to meet at the waist to a degree that destined them for the recycling bin. The socks, curiously, still fit, and so, despite the fact that they go with no trousers in my wardrobe, they haven’t been discarded.)

The problem that I face on many mornings is that in the half-light, with the open wardrobe door blocking the natural light, it is not easy to tell the blue socks from the black. I have discovered that my socks are gregarious and multi-cultural fellows. Despite the fact that I arrange the brown socks as a distinguishable barrier between the blue and the black, when left to their own devices the black and blue will shamelessly intermingle.

So what I need is a system of corrals or pens, in the hope that the socks will not learn how to climb over the barriers. Hence the burning need to visit IKEA.

Last Thursday, straight after breakfast, Bernice disappeared upstairs to shower and dress. After about an hour, when I realised she still hadn’t reappeared, I thought I ought to go upstairs to check that all was OK. I discovered her in the bedroom, still not showered or dressed, with our bed entirely covered in jewellery. She was, she informed me, just organising her jewellery shelf. This was clearly a knock-on effect of our impending trip to IKEA.

I left her to it and, little more than two hours later, she staggered downstairs, carrying a large plastic bag with all of the jewellery that, she informed me, she was giving away to a charity shop. (I hasten to add that Bernice buys a lot of her jewellery in the cut-price accessories shops that abound in Israel. Part of her astute taste in fashion has always been the ability to recognise how good an item can look without being influenced by the price tag. I can no longer calculate how many thousands of shekels this has saved us over the decades.)

I then accompanied Bernice upstairs, to admire her now minimalist jewellery collection. I was more than a little surprised to discover that I couldn’t actually tell the difference. The shelf seemed to me to be just as full as before. When I questioned her about this, she explained that she wore almost all of what she had kept (although some of it is obviously for special occasions only). In addition, she has some pieces inherited from her mother, which she obviously wouldn’t dream of parting with, and some pieces made by the children when they were younger, which she equally obviously wouldn’t dream of parting with.

I was about to make some cheap comment about the senselessness of keeping all this stuff when I remembered the contents of my own equivalent drawer. I won’t bore you with all the details, but two items will serve to demonstrate that what we have here is a case of pots and kettles and accusations of blackness.

Exhibit A is the ties. In my defence, I got rid of all but 3 of my ties several years ago. However, since, at that point, it was about 20 years since I had worn a tie, this was less of an achievement than it might sound at first. Of the ties I kept, one goes with blue or black, one with brown or green, and one I kept for sentimental reasons. It is a tie with a pattern of two different parrots. This represents a level of flamboyance that is so atypical of me that I must explain why I bought it.

It was principally as a lead-in to what I regarded at the time as a particularly brilliant piece of wit. Whenever I wore my parrot tie, I would explain to people that this was the tie I wore whenever I was abroad on business, because it reminded me of the family. This parrot, I would explain, is Polly Bernice, this smaller one is Polly Micha’el and the whole tie is Polly Esther. (I’ll get my coat, shall I?)

Exhibit B is my four pairs of cufflinks. Three of them were barmitzvah presents, and all have my initials on them. The fourth is a cheap, blingy, chunky gold pair I bought probably forty-five years ago. The only occasions on which I have worn cufflinks over the last 36 years have been barmitzvah and wedding parties in Britain, together with a dress shirt and dinner jacket. How many cufflinks does a man really need? Two, I suppose – unless he’s Lord Nelson. Of my four pairs, there is only one that I really like and that is the only one I would ever wear, yet I cannot imagine parting with any of them.

Now, four pairs of cufflinks is not the same as an entire shelf of jewellery. However, four pairs of cufflinks of which I will never wear three is at least recognizable as a symptom of the same reluctance to part with stuff. We all have our weaknesses. For some, it is electronic equipment that no longer works; for others, it is assorted screws that have lost a great deal of their cleanness of thread and slot through repeated use; for others, it is lengths of assorted string.

For me, it is all of the above and more. In my defence, I am a lot better than I used to be – or perhaps I should say that I used to be even worse than I am now. Unfortunately, in the intervening decades during which I have improved, I have accumulated so much more stuff that it is difficult to notice that improvement.

There is no cure, but we can only hope that IKEA’s organisers will offer me some level of remission.

This week’s photos offer not only our two grandsons, but also a first glimpse of our expected next arrival. It’s good to see everyone smiling!