Bed of roses...

OK...  Hands up...

Which one of you pressed the fast forward button on the tape recorder of life last Monday?  Well it wasn't me, that's for sure.  If it was down to me, I would have pressed the 'pause' button and gone for a lie down in a dark room for a few hours, never mind racing round the home counties like my drawers were on fire.

The house is just about to embark on a major face lift you see, and as much as I'd like to arrange all of this on my own, the husband feels the need to accompany me on every trip to the local wallpaper shop, the bathroom showroom, the DIY store and the carpet warehouse ('my particular favourite' she said, her voice dripping with the most severest case of sarcasm known to man).  Now for the most part, he's quite well behaved and nods in the right places and wanders off when he can't stand yet another paint swatch being thrust under his nose, while I ask him whether he prefers this colour to the one I showed him three minutes ago.

But yesterday, he surpassed himself.

Yesterday was the job I have been putting off, but after a rather exuberant walk with the woofers in the morning (yes, in THAT wind) we set off to Reading in search of the perfect bed.

Now there is nothing wrong with our bed (other than the fact that it is almost twenty years old) but the husband made the foolish claim that the bed 'wasn't big enough because someone kept hogging the duvet'.  I tend to look at the bed size in a different light though. One foot wider means more space for the dogs, and that's got to be a good thing.  To be honest, there have been nights when I have chosen to sleep in the spare room with the dogs rather than share with the warthog who sometimes come to bed after a trip to the pub.

So anyway, there we were in the bed shop.  Slightly hungover after the previous day's rugby, knackered from a long walk and watching the husband trying out mattress after mattress in the hope that the salesman wouldn't notice if he happened to nod off for a bit.

Now I can sleep on anything or anywhere.  As long as I am warm and cosy, I just don't care, but the husband is most particular.  Half an hour into looking at the beds, he realised that there was a number at the end of each mattress between 1 and 5.  These related to the firmness of the mattress, with 1 equating to a marshmallow, and 5 a snooker table.

So he did a complete lap of the twenty four mattresses on display.  At the beginning, he was quite happy to ask me what the number was, but half way through he thought it would be a cracking wheeze to try and guess what the number was.  There would be a fist pump if he was right, but if he was wrong, he would just say, Well, I was close'.  

Well of course you were close, it's not like 4 is miles away from 1 is it, you numpty.

We had a lovely and very patient salesman who followed me and the husband round, and towards the end of the row (at the foot of the most expensive bed and mattress combination naturally) he suggested that I join my husband on the bed.

Lying down next to him in my wellies and padded jacket, he looked across at me,  'What do you think then?'

Sensing my frustration with the whole affair, it was at this point that the lovely salesman interjected with what he felt was a useful comment.

'Is it firm enough for you, madam?'

I didn't dare look at the husband who at that point decided to try sleeping on his side so that the poor salesman wouldn't see him laughing, leaving me to come up with an answer somewhere along the lines of 'We'll take it'.

Do you know how much beds are?

I've just about recovered from the shock, but have decided that I am never going to actually sleep in it, choosing instead to simply lie in it and marvel at its beauty and astronomical cost.  

The husband on the other hand will just snore his way through it in sweet oblivion...