supertinks | The saga of my new mattress

So Jamie and I are shopping on Sunday. We're driving to Tesco (which takes us past a retail park containing such fabulous outlets as Hobbycraft, Toys 'R' Us, Homebase, Staples, Comet etc) and Jamie says "do you want to have a wander round any of these while we're here?"

I opt for Hobbycraft, so we go in to see if we can find him a remote control helicopter. We can't, and on the way out Jamie spots the newly opened Bensons for Beds megastore a few doors down. So we go in to "see how much mattresses cost".

Ten minutes later, we're walking out of the shop clutching a receipt and eagerly awaiting our Tuesday afternoon delivery.

But, I can hear you cry, this is not much of a saga. Well the story continues..

Get home from work yesterday and there it is, my brand new orthopedic mattress of extreme comfyness. So we spend absolutely ages getting very tired, humping the old mattress down the stairs and then the new mattress up the stairs. For those of you who have not seen our stairs, they are very narrow and very very steep. So this was something of a trial.

We finally get the mattress in the bedroom, get it over to the bed, put it on the bed... they've delivered the wrong size. We wanted a double, we got a king.

Well, there were 2 options. Option 1 said "tell them they've made a mistake, and wait around for ages while they organise collection and re-delivery". Option 2 said "go buy a new bed".

So we opted for number 2, and drove back to the bed superstore. We then very swiftly selected and purchased a lovely silver metal king size bed, for the very reasonable price of not-very-many-pounds. They had one in stock, so we said "yes, we'll take it now". They told us to drive the car round the back, where we were met by the lovely indian (probably) man who helped us load the car.

However, the box the headboard/footboard was in was too wide for the car (by about 2 inches!) and slightly too long! We ended up taking the frame out of the box, and putting it in loose. Even so, I had to pull both front seats right the way forward, and lean the passenger seat forwards so there was room for the other box, which was long and thin. We had to lash the boot shut with the woven plastic tape that had held the box together, and I had to abandon Jamie at the store while I drove the bed home, all cramped up against my steering wheel.

That was somewhat of a trial, although fortunately we live quite close to the bed store, so it didnt take long.

Andy helped me unload the bed, I went back to get Jamie.

We had a wander round Toys R Us, and discovered many rubbish toys.

We got home, Jamie got started on taking down the old bed and building the new one while I cooked dinner. Once we'd eaten and finished the bed, we got the mattress on it and went to make it.

At which point Jamie, with sheets in hand, kindly points out that "this is a double sheet, thats a kingsize mattress".

Cue a late night trip to Tesco, where we purchased the rather odd combination of a new kingsize fitted sheet, and a box of Raisin Wheats (for Andy).

By this point I was getting more than a little stressed by the whole affair, as was Jamie.

But it was all worth it when we made the bed and climbed in. It was sooooo comfy. Even Mr Fidget agreed, and had just as much trouble getting up this morning as I did!