One of the great “luxuries” of my life is that I get to spend lots of time in one of my favourite places – my bed. Yes, I’ve been known to enjoy a long lie in on the weekends. Once my friends started to have families, some of them took to calling me at 8am on Saturdays. Umm, hello – you might be up at that time, or even hours earlier, but I sure ain’t! I made my bed, and I intend to lie in it, undisturbed.

Now some of you may have already thrown your iPad on the floor or rolled your bleary eyes at all this talk about luxuriating in bed – you miss your beds, I know. Maybe you are in parenting the babies and toddlers land, where sleep seems long forgotten, or maybe you are away from your bed on a work trip, or you miss the person who you share that intimate space with.

Bed is my recharging station, somewhere I go to read, relax, play Solitaire and sleep and dream. Sometimes I toss and turn, and my brain won’t power down, but usually I find rest and slumber – even if I do wake up with the bed covers at a 90 degree turn to where they started!

Bed is a mystical, healing place. When we’re little, we may not want to go there, or we worry about monsters under the bed… we need just one more story before the light goes out, and the door must be left open a crack. Bed can be the place where fits are thrown, burying your face in a pillow and wailing about not being able to go to grandma’s – or having to go – we kick and carry on there.

As we grow up, our bedrooms are our sanctuaries, especially if we grow up in bustling houses. I never has to share a room, though my brothers did, and my younger sisters did too. Luck of the draw! My room was all mine, so I’d hang out on the floor, reading, playing music, daydreaming, churning through homework or doing nothing at all. It was my private haven. You need that with brothers making noise, new babies crying and parents nagging you about eating your beans or some other outrageous demand.

My mother was crazy for matching bed linen, and as our family grew, we all had matching doona covers – I remember Sesame Street characters, the huge Vegemite jars and the VFL covers with all the team logos – yes, I said VFL, I’m that old!! Then there were the Ken Done years and the move from single bed sized doonas to doubles – more snuggly for sure. Good memories.

I love bed linen still, I love Boxing Day sales and the June stocktake sales and a 50% off sheet set is a thing of beauty.

I like geometric patterns and bold colours, and have never had a Laura Ashley moment. If that’s your wheelhouse, more power to you – we’ll never be fighting over European pillowcases in David Jones on December 27th!

My love of freshly line-dried sheets knows no bounds. Is there a better smell than that? Fresh sheets always make you sleep better, I’m sure that’s a scientific fact.

All this talk about bed… I should be getting sleepy, but it is energising me!

Something about a cold, long weekend makes me think about my bed – it’s probably the prospect of an extra morning to laze in bed, thinking about what the day will bring.

What does your bed mean to you? I’d love to know.

Try and spend some quality, and quantity time there this weekend.

 

Drafted this post from my bed, but I’m up now! Happy Queen’s Birthday weekend everybody.

 

Annette