rural, rural Derbyshire! Where beds fall from walls

Indeed. Last weekend I found myself away, with Wife and child at Cliff College, in rural Derbyshire, near Calver I believe. Now it has to be said; I have studied at two of the most attractive campus universities, Exeter, designed for oxford and cambridge rejects. And my favourite, Keele University, in staffordshire, my first and one of the most attractive places to study. I know it's not far from Stoke on Trent, and boy is that a culture shock for the eyes! But Keele, nestled away is just stunning, recommend it, go. Avoid Stoke. So we role up in the dark and awake to this!

The one on the left is our accommodation block. It looks lovely doesn't it? The stone is lovely. But much like Cheryl Cole, the outside might be pretty but the inside is less so.
the photo on the right was taken from the beside the car, and shows Kerber edge, behind the fields and under the clear Derbyshire blue sky. A beautiful, beautiful campus. And like all beautiful things, they cannot quite be perfect and here was the flaw;

Obviosuly this photo is very small and isn't to size. Or is it? Was the bed, in fact, only 2 inches long. At times it felt like it. I am not renowned for my shortness, nor my lack of bodily width. This means two things when it comes to beds. I like my beds like Americans like their food portions, big and bigger. In bed/food simile mode, this bed was an aperitif compared to the one at home which is a 16oz steak size. There is a simple and painful logic to understand that a 6ft 4in man struggles to sleep in a 5ft 5in bed, where the mattress is not as wide as me also.

There were six of these beds, which pulled out from the wall, in the room. I can only assume that at some point in the past Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Dopey got  peeved by the ridiculously nosiy sneezy, sneezing all the time, and kicked him out of this particular room. I chose not to eat any apples that weekend, just in case. Now, when you got bored you could this to the beds;

 

And there you have it. The worlds largest filing cabinet. I haven't quite persuaded myself that this could be done at home, although the image of lowering the bed like a medieval drawbridge before going to bed does weirdly appeal to me! plus I could then wear armour around the house, which has always been a secret ambition of mine. I think that's arisen since I first saw Nicholas clay, gleaming, in his silver armour, as Lancelot in the film Excalibur. Failing armour we do have a large roll of tin foil, Hmmmmmm.........