When life starts to get a bit gritty, there's one place I often want to be, and that's in bed.
For if a woman’s home is her castle, then her bed is the equivalent of a faithful servant who greets her at the end of the day with a warm towel, a glass of fine champagne and a Tim-Tam.
It seems I am not alone in finding the bed a good place to retreat to from life’s challenges. For in his book, At Home, in the chapter on bedrooms Bill Bryson sagely observes:
If you are exhausted, sexually dysfunctional, tearful, racked with anxiety, depressed or otherwise lacking in equanimity and joy, the bedroom is the place where you are most likely to be found.
I may be none of these things, but I still really like my bed. I have heard it said that if you want to sleep well, your bed should be used for nothing but sleep. This is obviously rubbish. For a bed is the perfect place to read, watch YouTube videos, talk to a cat, finish Wordle, or gaze at the spring blossoms on the tree outside. It is also (as now) a lovely place to write.
But the thing about a bed is, every so often it has to be made. And the thing about cats is, they like to be on the bed while you are trying to make it. Especially if you’re changing the sheets. Nek minnit, a seemingly rocket-propelled cat will appear from nowhere and launch itself on to the middle of the bed. There it proceeds to either lie on its back like a sunbathing dog or worse, dig its claws into the mattress. Lo, the sheet that you are trying to spread to the four corners of the bed is now as immovable as a climate protestor on the Wellington motorway.
But, I discovered last night, revenge is sweet when you realise the fitted sheet you are trying to use is the wrong size for the bed. For all you need to do is lift up the corners and wrap the sheet around the cat so she now resembles a cotton-encased sausage. “You wanted to be there,” I responded to Eleanor’s indignant meows before helping her out.
The other thing about beds is, occasionally they have to be vacuumed around. This is always a mission of exploration in our household. For at the foot of our bed there flows a waterfall of loose blankets. The thing about having a tall partner is, they like the blankets to be left untucked at the end of the bed. This creates a cave of sorts where shoes, socks, pens, phones and credit cards regularly take up residence. There is nothing quite like ringing your bank to report that your lost credit card is now found – “It was under the bed” – to make you feel as if your entry into adulthood was someone’s idea of a bad joke.
Beds used to be made from straw, sawdust, wood shavings, cotton and even hair. They are now made from decorative frames and plump mattresses, topped with sheets, blankets, duvets, cushions (often too many for the man’s liking) and sometimes, soft toys. What a shame it would be if all the industrial creativity that has gone into making our beds more comfortable was wasted on the mere act of sleep. I’m not saying we should live in our beds, but there seems no harm in continuing to make good use of them .
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