It’s a good job we bought a house with a good sized master bedroom, as we were determined to keep our superking bed-it has a Tempur mattress and is the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept on. Sleep is extremely important to me, as even my children have realised. (This doesn’t stop them waking me up whenever they fancy, but I do appreciate their attempts at ‘sssshhhhh, let Mummy sweep’ while they clamber over my head to hunker down in the middle at 6 a.m.)

Our third-time-lucky bedding is white waffle with grey piping from Next

Much as I love it being big enough for a family of four, the only drawback to its enormity is finding bedding for it. Many shops/brands don’t produce superking bedding, and when they do it’s obviously always the most expensive size.

But here’s the question that has caused me to spend many frustrated hours in shops, hunting online and standing inside my own duvet cover trying in vain to make every corner marry up with the duvet; what actual size is a superking bed/duvet/mattress? and what about a king, double, or a European double? Then there’s the queen size and the emperor, or the new-build trick of the eye small double. Or is that a queen? Not to mention the single and small single. Then there’s cot or cot bed, toddler size bedding…and don’t even get me started on IKEA sizing…flat sheet, fitted sheet, valance sheet, deep fitted or extra deep. Square pillow, rectangular, oxford or housewife, and even KING SIZED PILLOWS. Aaarrrrggghhhhh…

By the time I’d admitted defeat with our third set of not-quite-fitting bedding, I decided to get the tape measure out and do some research. So for anyone out there who cares, here is my guide to bed and bedding sizes. Though, all that hard work has brought me to the conclusion that there is definitely slight variation between the majority of retailers & the only way you’ll guarantee a perfect fit is to buy everything from the same shop, or to measure everything yourself. Sorry!