While living in California, Paul and I were quite good friends with a couple around our same age. One half of them was a film producer and they had the kind of life that dazzles the rest of us: a sumptuous house in Bel-Air, German cars and Martin Scorsese as a guest at their wedding.

Truly a heady, glamorous lifestyle that was an awful lot of fun to observe from the outer fringes.

When a child arrived just over a year later she was soon appointed with all I expected: organic cotton diapers, a nanny, but, oddly, no nursery.

Where will she sleep? I asked.

With us. I was told. We believe in the family bed.

Upon more questioning which was met with the sort of patient replies one would give to an unsophisticated bumpkin who had also, until the birth of this child, never heard the term, doula, I soon learned that the family bed was a lifestyle approach to child rearing in which the infant shares the bed with its parents, making it easier to nurse for the mother and, it is believed, creates a child who is better adjusted and more confident.

When our friends had their second child, less than a year later, this child also occupied the bed with the rest of the family.

What a bunch of hooey! I said to Paul with the smugness of those who are childless and have no actual child-rearing experience. Can you imagine the mess? Plus, I would think the children would become so clingy that theyd have terrible separation anxiety if Mommy and Daddy arent at their every beck and call.

Yeah, Paul agreed. And I just cannot imagine the smell or not having any room to stretch out. Its crazy!

Funny how ones life can turn a 180.

For the past decade that we have lived here on the farm, our children in fur pajamas have created their own family bed, each staking out their own territory. The terriers, like clockwork, come upstairs at around 9 pm, and Rosie, who clearly suffers from separation anxiety, inserts herself in the tiny space between our pillows (to be as close to our heads as possible) while Bonnie settles slightly lower, at about hip-level. Pauls cat, Vicky, plants herself upon his chest and the youngest cat, Tippy, only feels secure with her head wedged into my right armpit.

We have learned not to drink anything after dinner as being pinned under the covers by their collective weight, it is quite impossible to wriggle out and Heaven forbid you should have to change positions any sort of movement is generally met by Bonnie having a White Fang moment upon being disturbed.

Paul once suggested buying a larger bed. Whatever for? I asked. We would still be teetering on each edge, only with more space for them to stretch out!

We havent seen our friends for years, but I expect that their children are now lovely young ladies in their early teens and surely have fabulous bedrooms of their own overlooking the swimming pool. We, on the other hand, are stuck with shedding terriers that snore and pass the most dreadful wind, particularly if they have gotten into the cat food. But theres always a bright side

Well never have to worry about some 16-year-old boy, hormones bursting out of his ears, arriving to take them on a date in his van.