I never mind too much what my holiday sleeping arrangements are like. I’m not fussy about the springiness of the mattress, or the thread count of the sheets. Just as long as I have a bed, that’s all that matters. Each year we head down to Devon with the extended family to stay in whichever rambling property we’ve found to accommodate us.
Last summer my husband and I were in the top bedroom, our three children close at hand in a side room. Unpacking half done, the children ran downstairs to join their cousins in the garden and we examined our room more closely.
“Electric beds.” I noticed. We are such children ourselves that of course we had to try them out, so we leapt onto this novelty contraption and began playing with the remote.
“You know, this could be quite interesting…” My husband said, with a rather lecherous leer. “If you raise the end of the bed, like that, you’d be in the optimum position for an orgasm.”
I stared at him incredulously. “How do you even know that?”
“Cosmo.” He confessed. “I read it at work from time to time. Shall we give it a go?”
“What, now?” The house was full of people bringing in groceries and unpacking their cases.
“Oh go on – I’ll be quick.”
He hopped on and I grabbed the remote and raised the end of the bed. Hmm, promising…
“What’s that?” I could hear voices on the stairs.
“It’s nothing. How does that feel? The bed company should put this in their brochure as a special feature. Maybe we should write to them…”
The voices were growing louder and with a sickening lurch I realised my uncle had arrived earlier than expected and was being given the guided tour.
“Oh my God.”
“Is that it?” My husband looked rather smug.
“No, you idiot. They’re coming in!”
He leapt off the bed and hurtled into the bathroom, as I fumbled for the remote and lowered the bed back to a normal position, the remote control spinning off the bed and onto the floor in my haste. I tried to get up but my skirt was trapped in the bed mechanism and I couldn’t move. This was going horribly wrong.
“And this is the attic room, which Emily’s using…”
The door handle turned and all I could do was arrange my skirt modestly and wonder where my knickers had ended up.
“Hello – don’t mind me, I’m just having a little lie down.”
I think I can do without that sort of electricity in our relationship.