Bed and Bread

I staggered home on Thursday night, feeling rather unwell.

Actually I wasn't just feeling unwell.  I was feeling as if my bones of my legs had been replaced by pools of pain of an infinite depth, the hair on my head was growing out of tiny little septic land mines, exploding in spikes of anguish every time a breath of air brushed the surface of my scalp, my eyes were being bathed by a river of concentrated hydrofluoric acid, the bones of my arms had been replaced by a super-dense mixture of grief, self-hatred and neutronium.

I really didn't feel at my best.

My Beloved must have recognised that I wasn't feeling too good, for she didn't even have a  nag at me when I arrived home,

A really hot shower restored some feeling of normalcy and dressed in my PJs, I had a lovely bowl of pumpkin soup prepared by my Beloved. 

I began to feel that I would actually live until the next day, then waves of nausea, exhaustion and worse of all, excessive flatulence swept over me.

I departed for my bed with my Beloved waving goodbye.  It was rather an odd wave, as she was firmly holding her nose with her other hand.  I did mention the flatulence, didn't I?

Ah, BED.

I had bought this bed 9 years ago.  It has a solid Rimu ( a lovely native New Zealand wood) frame, a sprung wooden slatted base, a luxuriant individually sprung mattress, with a final overlayer of a NASA developed foam.  It is the most comfortable bed we have ever owned.

Sliding in between the luxurious, high-thread, Egyptian cotton sheets is a sensual experience in itself.  Relaxing on the supportive layers is like having your woes removed one by one.

I had enough strength to switch on the iPod-powered bedside sound system, and as I descended into the warm velvety blackness, I was serenaded by the mellow voice of Nigel Davenport reading Gerald Durrell's "My Family and Other Animals".

It was 8 o'clock on Thursday evening when I went to bed.  It was about 1:30 the next afternoon when the pressure on my about-to-explode bladder forced me out of my warm, safe haven.

Back to bed.

Now we get to the core of this question.

Why is it that when we really want comfort, we head for our bed.

We can be dressed in our most comfortable clothes, be wrapped in a favourite (and strangely it's almost always a TARTAN) woolen rug, lying across a favoured couch , but it's not as nice as lying in bed.

Lying in bed has a flavour of decadence, mixed with early memories of safety in the cot.

Mummy always tucked you up in a nice warm, clean bed when you were sick.  It always helped.

The smell of a bed is different.

I can remember when I was a toddler and I was put into my Grandparent's bed.

A curious mixture of smells.  Warm and slightly fuggy.  The smell of embrocation (a traditional liniment for easing aches and pains and muscle strains) and it had a metallic tang.  My Grandfather worked in the steel mills and always had the aroma of iron.

It smelled of safety and comfort.

I'm going back to bed now.

Dreaming of nice things.