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spare room tonight and it just wouldn't be the same. I love my bed. Let me tell you about it…
    A few of my favourite things.
Favourite thing No 1
My Bed A love story
    My bed is a lovely bed. It is not just any old bed. It is a bed I assembled myself and by that I don't mean it came in a flat pack from Ikea. I bought an expensive mattress, in other words, not the cheapest one in the shop. I think it was only the third cheapest. Extravagance indeed!
    Then the bedding. I have not one, but two duvets. One to cover me -obviously. But - you're going to like this - the second one goes under my sheet, so I lie on top of it. It's a trick my mother taught me and it's hard to convey the bliss of climbing in and being received by the fluffy, feathery envelope. The duvets seem to stroke me, murmuring, You're OK now, we've got you, we've got you, let it go, it's all OK, you're safe now- like the hero does to the girl at the end of the movie, after she's been on the run from rogue elements of the FBI, and she's finally managed to expose them without getting shot.
    Sheets, duvet covers and pillow cases: cotton, of course, and they are white, white, white (apart from the coffee stains).
    Unique feature: the headboard. Aka: the best bit. Cody's friend Claud made it for me (I paid him for it, it wasn't a present) and it's a headboard fit for a fifties movie star: big, padded and all curves and curlicues, upholstered in faded bronze silk with a scattering of tea-roses, it's a bit fairy tale, a bit Art Nouveau, in other words, a bit fabulous. People always remark on it. Indeed the first time Anton saw it he exclaimed, 'Look at your girlie bed!' then roared laughing, before rolling me onto it. Ah, happy days…
    I gave my bed a final regretful look, wishing I didn't have to leave it. I consulted my ghost sisters, 'You go on over to Mam,' I said to the first one. 'You're the eldest.' But nothing doing, so I went myself.
    When I got out of the car and came into the house, carrying my clean suit and shirts, Mam said, 'What do you need them for?'
    'Work.'
    ' Work ?' Like she'd never heard of such a thing.
    'Yes, Mam, work.'
    'When?'
    'Tomorrow.'
    'Don't go.'
    'Mam, I have to go. I'll lose my job if I don't.'
    'Take compassionate leave.'
    'They only give it when someone dies.'
    'I wish he had died.'
    'Mam!'
    'But I do. We'd get a ton of sympathy. And respect. And the neighbours would bring food.'
    'Quiches,' I said. (Because they do.)
    'And apple tarts. Marguerite Kelly makes a lovely funeral apple tart.' (Said with a certain amount of bitterness, you'll see why in a minute.) 'But instead of having the decency to die he's got a girlfriend and left me. And now you're talking about going to work. Take some of your holidays.'
    'I've none left.'
    'Sick leave, then. Dr Bailey will give you a note. I'll pay.'
    'Mam, I can't ! I was starting to panic.
    'What could be so important?'
    'Davinia Westport's wedding next Thursday.'
    'Big deal,' she said.
    One of the society weddings of the year, to be precise. The most important, complex, costly, terrifying job I'd ever worked on and the logistics had occupied me for months, both in my waking hours and in my dreams.
    The flowers alone involved five thousand refrigerated tulips arriving from Holland and a flower specialist and his six assistants flying in from New York. The cake was to be a twelve-foot-high replica of the Statue of Liberty, but was to be made of ice cream so couldn't be prepared until the last minute. A marquee, big enough to hold five hundred guests, was to be set up in a field in Kildare on Monday night and transformed into an Arabian Nights Wonderland by Thursday morning. Because Davinia — in every other respect an obliging, sensible girl - had elected to get married in a tent in January, I was still trying to track down enough heaters to ensure we didn't freeze. Among other things… Many, many other things. It was a real stamp of approval that Davinia had picked me to pull together her dream