The Dwyer matrimonial bed, could it talk, could well have a story to tell. It started life in Stonybatter in Dublin where it was intended to be the marimonial bed of my daughter her husband. Unfortunately they discovered that they couldn’t fit the bed up the stairs of the tiny two up two down. Not at all phased they cut a hole in the floor of their bedroom through to down stairs and wriggled it up that way. Then, when they erected it there they discovered that with the bed up in their tiny room they could no longer open and shut the door. At this moment they decided to abandon it, kept the mattress and offered it to us for our French B&B. We were delighted and brought it out with one of our loads. The bed was a five foot wide one which translates beautifully into the metric 1.5 metres. We trotted down to the local bed shop only to discover that the French do not make 1.5 mattresses. For some unknown reason they make 1.4 and 1.6 but never 1.5. However the pleasant bed man told us that he could order a special, custom made 1.5 for us. Which he did. As soon as we saw the “custom made” 1.5 we realised that a canny mattress maker had just shaved 10 cms off a 1.6 and sewed up the end. However we needed our sleep so we ventured on. After about a year I began to notice that my side of the bed was quite a bit lower than Sile’s. Sure enough the shaved side was sagging disasterously under my weight. (At this stage the bed shop had gone out of business so there was no hope of recompense.) Then a friend who lived in the village told us that he would be driving down to Thezan from Mallow with a truck and did we want anything brought ? Did I what. I successfully ordered a 1.5 Odearest from a shop in Mallow and waited in expectation for the joys of a decent mattress. I did notice that my Irish friend was a little short with me as he delivered the mattress. Then I discovered the reason why. His truck was an open one and so, he and his co-driver had to bring the mattress into their hotel rooms on the way down for fear of rain during the night. This had caused some embarrassment. However the mattress was a great success and we have been enjoying great sleeps since, or that is until last year when the leg fell off the bed. Now truth to tell it didn’t fall off so much as wobble on the edge threatening to fall and every night would have to be hammered back into position before we got in. A little nerve wracking. Now my old friend Michael who is staying and is an engineer is also an excellent DIY man- a skill I very much lack. Michael spent the day yesterday re dowelling, gluing and finally screwing the leg firmly back into place.
So,a mere eight years after being given the present, we finally have a perfect bed.