marivon1 helpful to know, thank you. The UK does not use European/metric sizes. I have not looked into buying Ikea beds in the past as I don't like being restricted to their bed linen, although in the end I don't find much I like in the UK anyway and end up buying linen in Europe, the US or Australia. I had a look and yes, you are right ... last year (2014) Ikea started to stock the smaller UK imperial sized beds but you can still get the European metric ones online. From what you say they have also changed their bed linen to the smaller UK sizes, which makes sense (kind of). http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/12/ikea-booms-britain-uk-size-smaller-beds-sales http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB/pdf/bed_frame_%20size_%20guide.pdf

I was 24 and my husband to be 32, back in 1978, we paid £19,500 for a 3 bed terrace in south London. Our eldest son bought in 2001 when he was 19 and on a small Royal Navy salary whist at university, sadly he sold it to pay for his wedding and hasn't got back on the ladder since. Our middle son bought aged 23 and our daughter with her then boyfriend bought their first flat at 21 and 22 straight from university in 2008 with one of the last 100% mortgages, they move next week into their third property aged 29 & 30. It's always difficult to get on the ladder but the sooner you start the better. We all live in Surrey by the way and nobody has been funded by the bank of mum and dad.

I was leaving the marital home for a basement flat and I was feeling a little vulnerable and hard done by. Just me and my little cat so we needed a lovely new bed, just for us. I bought a large wooded sleigh bed from a local family store. They were lovely and came round that afternoon with the bed in pieces. They put it all together and gave me a free new duvet set. My new start.

I have to say my whole garden is finally looking good at the moment! We had to have a trench dug across it last year for the new drains for the kitchen, plus we've had trees taken down, new patios laid, beds made and a whole bed of ground elder laid fallow and covered for over a year. Consequently, since Easter, we have been "doing" the garden - well I say we, it's actually the OH doing all the grunt work, digging, planting and re-planting (oops), with me in a purely managerial capacity and doing a bit of dead heading. This is what it was like in 2017 And last year