We were so late home from work last night that the dawn chorus had completely finished before we got to bed, and the birds had turned their attention to the rest of their daily business, whatever that might involve when nobody has got washing out.
When we finally emerged again, blinking in the daylight, we discovered that we still have sunshine.
This is wonderful, if it lasts until October I shall be very happy indeed. It is so warm that I am wearing my fur boots with only a single pair of socks this evening. This is a slightly peculiar sensation, they feel unexpectedly roomy.
We have had a Bed Regeneration day.
We spend a great deal of time in bed, it is one of my very favourite places. It is the only place where we actually loaf about and relax. We have got a sofa, but only the dogs ever sit on it, and so it always has a slight dog fragrance about it which reduces its appeal yet further. Hence today we decided that the bed, our wonderful warm haven from the world, needed some restoration.
I like nothing better than the feeling of clean bedlinen. Ours is white cotton, smooth and crisp. I dry it on the washing line and when I have got nothing else much happening, spray it with lavender water and feed it through the rotary iron. I don’t do this every week because of a limited number of available hours for doing completely unproductive smug things, but I like it very much when I do.
We have a huge feather quilt which I washed a few days ago, and which is now dry and fluffy again, waiting to be replaced. We washed the pillows and pegged them on the line, and dragged the mattress cover off to wash.
The poor mattress was beginning to look a little weary. It is not the sort that you can turn over, so we brushed it and hoovered it and then washed it with some shampoo that is supposed to be for removing the consequences of dog incontinence. It is good at this, so we reasoned that it would be perfect for our bed. Not that anybody has been incontinent in our bed, at least, not since Ritalin Boy was small.
The thing that is not good for our bed is that I am a cold-blooded lizard sort of person, and Mark is not. Not only am I not warm, but my feet radiate out their own little icy glow, and make the sheets all around them cold as well.
I like the quilt to be thick and heavy, and then curl up against Mark for good measure.
Mark is possibly the warmest person I have ever met. It is like being in bed with a freshly roasted goose. Heat rolls from him in the way you see the scenery rippling in Australian films about people who have rashly ventured out into the wilderness without servicing their pickup.
In order for me to be blissfully comfortable and contented, the bed needs to be so warm that Mark’s ears become pink and the top of his head starts to steam.
This is why we boil the sheets very often.
It is good that we have got to do this anyway, because it means that we do not mind about the dogs so much. The dogs are not allowed on the bed except for the very first moment when they hear us stirring. At that point they take a flying leap on to the quilt and stick their noses in our ears with small whuffles of joy.
This gets us up very quickly.
They come on the bed with us whilst we have our first and most contemplative coffee of the day. They are supposed to lie on an old towel but obviously they wriggle and it often finishes up over the top of them rather than underneath.
Tonight we will have the cleanest of clean beds. It has been washed and hoovered and dusted and wiped. The sheets smell of the garden and none of it has even the faintest hint of dog.
I am looking forward to it very much indeed.
