The Bed

There’s something about our bed.  It’s nothing special- a king size, run of the mill bed – but it is our bed. And despite all the hotels and motels and luxury apartments and boats and aeroplanes and anywhere else you can sleep in style, nothing beats climbing into our bed and going to la la land.  And the strange thing is, it has become the hub of upstairs – everything goes on in our bed.  The boys have woken up to new babies in the bed (thankfully they weren’t in the bed during the making of the new babies  - that would just be weird), if they feel ill they clamber into our bed, if there is a problem that needs talking through, it goes on on our bed, the tooth fairy has run late on several occasions and has ended up visiting our bed, and Father Christmas stockings are brought in from all the bedrooms at some ungodly hour on Christmas Day and ripped open with whoops of joy all over our bed.

Rather shyly the other day I asked Eldest Son where he would like to open his birthday presents.  I felt that I ought to, as at nearly 6 ft tall and 14 years old, I felt that maybe it would be more appropriate to open his gifts and cards in the lounge.  He looked horrified at the thought of relocating the tradition, and so our family of five scrambled happily on to the bed eating chocolate cake and surrounded by wrapping paper at 7.30 in the morning.

But you know, I recall the same in my childhood.  Perhaps my parents bed had the same attraction for my sister and I because it contained the two people we loved most in the world.  Perhaps it was because their bed was twice the size of ours and instead of having sheets and blankets it had something called a ‘Dooovaaay’ which was very luxurious and almost unheard of where we lived in Africa.  There was nothing like clambering up onto the crunchy feather cover and opening up our Christmas stockings.

And because I change the covers on a Monday, Sunday is the day that we allow Muttley to come and wake us up in our bed.  This generally ends up in chaos – especially when it is wet outside and we have a white duvet cover, but it has become a rite of passage to ensure that we never get a lie in. He loves this, and today was whining at the door to be let in.  With a joyous yell he hurled himself enthusiastically at a very hungover slumbering G, and lay there, head on the pillow, panting hot dog breath into G’s ear. Once he had ensured that we were well and truly awake, he yawned, and went to sleep.

 As I said – there’s something about our bed…