Dear LPG,

I wonder if anyone else has noticed just how many inflatable beds are available on the market these days.  I get up quite early in the mornings and switch the television on for company, and I can’t help but observe the amount of extended adverts that are available for state of the art air beds at that time.

I admit to having bought one myself just in case.  It has had one outing and performed quite well according to the guest that used it, but something occurred to me.

When I was a child we had a spare room for a while but once that became my cousin’s bedroom,   a guest would usually end up on the settee (I think that the older ones were more sturdy), and do you remember the put-you-up era?   Perhaps the sale of these airbeds indicates that the spare room is slowly becoming a thing of the past.  I suppose that we elders are the most likely to have one at home when the children leave, but the youngsters tend to turn those extra rooms into studies and home-offices these days if they don’t decide to move and downsize.

As I mentioned earlier, I did buy one, but for over a year it lay neatly hidden behind an armchair in my front room, where it took up very little space.  I bought a double and was not really prepared for the size of it when fully inflated, but it did just about fit in the front room.  We got it inflated in about five minutes, which was a case of plugging it in and waiting.  I have to admit to finding a puncture kit in the packaging a little worrying, although my guest did report a good night’s sleep and I did have a little one-minute-test myself, but getting the air out of it and folding it back into its storage bag presented us with a bit of a challenge and took a lot longer than getting it out and ready for use the night before. 

So perhaps the guest bedroom is going to become a thing of the past as less people can afford the time for extended visits and practicality etches its way into another aspect of our modern lifestyles.

NT,   Beckenham