Wheelistically @ Claire.NU

7 AM Fri­day morn­ing saw the deliv­ery of My New Bed™. This is no small domestic detail, this is a Big Deal™.

For the last 2–3 years I have slept upon a Makro store-bought futon. It’s hol­low alu­minium tubing was the 21^st Cen­tury, flat-packed equi­val­ent to a Medi­eval Tor­ture Rack, whilst the “mat­tress” it bore was stuffed with noth­ing more than a mat­ted mass of “recycled tex­tile fibres” [see image, below], as we dis­covered when attempt­ing to wash the cov­er­ing. Unzip­ping mat­tress cover revealed a neb­u­lous abund­ance of inter­twined acrylic floss — it was like Edward Scissor-Hands had been let loose in a branch Marks and Spen­cer whilst audi­tion­ing for a re-make of The Exor­cist. It took over an hour and no less than 3 people to tame the beast when try­ing to put the newly washed cover back on.

Now that my back has been giv­ing me merry hell for almost a year and the pain has now spread its way down my body to include my hips and pel­vis, we all thought it was time to do the decent thing and give that God For­saken futon the “Hyland Fling” (as Grandad would say).

Our efforts res­ul­ted in this bed and this mat­tress here. We’ll be in debt to Argos for the rest of the year, if not longer, but at least we won’t lose any sleep over it. (Go on, you can groan at that one — I don’t mind).

It’s the com­fi­est, squish­i­est, love­li­est bed ever. I have never had a mat­tress like this before, it cost almost double what the bed did, but it’s fantabulous (cheap mat­tresses are a false eco­nomy, unless you want to feel about 90 when you’re only 21…). I can’t stop enthus­ing about it and I tell any­one who’ll stand still long enough about the won­drous­ness that is My New Bed&#153, no doubt bor­ing them all to tears with the mundane domest­icity that has become my life since leav­ing the human race full-time education.

All was decon­struc­ted (the futon) and con­struc­ted (the bed) within an hour and a half, single-handedly by K. (Who says you need a man about the house to get things done, eh?) I tried to help, but ended up get­ting in the way, mangling the instruc­tions, mak­ing “not-very-helpful” sug­ges­tions, drop­ping part of the frame on K’s foot, tip­ping a packet of “Salt and Shake” all over the car­pet and gen­er­ally swear­ing like a fish-wife and need­ing adult super­vi­sion to ensure I stayed out of trouble for the dur­a­tion of the event.

Fri­day also marked K and I’s 5^th anniversary. Ever the hope­less romantic, K greeted me with this bou­quet and a reser­va­tion for din­ner at a local res­taur­ant. The exper­i­ence at din­ner was ques­tion­able (bad ser­vice), the flowers how­ever, were stunning:

This next shot was taken once the lilies had opened — yup, pink Ori­ental lilies, my favour­ite. (as if you couldn’t guess…)