Beth and I met outside Mr R's on a very sunny Sunday morning ready for what we hoped would be a reasonably straightforward bed shifting mission to make space for an incoming hospital bed. Mrs R kindly showed us the challenge ahead, and (with some foresight) had removed the pictures hanging on the walls up the somewhat narrow staircase.

The (much) heavier than expected mattress proved to be something of a challenge, both physically and for our spatial awareness - requiring brain and brawn, and at times a healthy dose of old fashioned grunt, to manipulate it up the stairs, using the conveniently located bathroom to back it into, before finally getting into the upstairs bedroom without disturbing too many more of Mrs R's furnishings.

You can imagine our relief when we discovered the divan base split into two, and was a fraction of the weight of the mattress - once upstairs, we rebuilt the bed and left Mrs R to tidy up the bedding left in the downstairs room before heading to the hospital to see her husband.

She seemed genuinely pleased with our efforts - I fear both of us may be aching a bit tomorrow from this unexpectedly intense workout...