Jonny's Room, Central Bedford

Our musician friend Jonathan loved to stay in this room, with its early-morning sun and Regency shutters, its peace and cosiness for a quiet read or study. So we call it Jonny's Room. (Somewhere in this room there is a Dalek Jonny left behind...) We have just restored the wooden doors opening onto the Georgian balconette, so you can step out into the Juliet balcony. (Please note this room overlooks the street, so you may hear the occasional passerby or vehicle..) We live in a lovely Regency home in the centre of Bedford, in a tree-lined Regency and Victorian terrace, five minutes walk from all amenities (seven minutes from the station) and yet almost as peaceful as if we were in the heart of the countryside. We have a wonderful large garden with tennis, croquet and doves; an orchard with chickens, ducks and bees; a swimming pool in the summer; a sitting room with a home cinema and an open fire in winter. This is a family home, and we welcome our guests as friends and will do everything we can to make you comfortable. We love meeting visitors from all over the world, and enjoy having you in our home and hearing about your work and interests. Short-term guests: We will put pure linen sheets on your bed, fluffy cotton towels and supply your room with flowers, kettle, tea and coffee, biscuits and a little spongebag. (If you would like to be sure your sheets are ironed for a surcharge of £10, please give us plenty of notice.) Long-term guests: for those coming for more than a few nights, we charge considerable less than the recommended Airbnb rate, to make it more viable for visiting academics and so on. We also offer a slightly different service: we will leave you to get your own breakfast and clean your own room (and water your window box please!) unless you prefer to pay an optional £5 per week service charge. Also for longer-term guests, please note that this is a busy family home and we have five children and lots of friends. Occasionally this means that if you have booked our room for some weeks or months, we may need to ask you very politely if we can move you for a night or two, in order to put one of our offspring or a personal guest in the space you are temporarily occupying. We will always do this with the utmost respect for your privacy and possessions and give you somewhere else comfortable in the house, and it has never been an issue for any of our lovely Airbnb longer-term guests. We are barely five minutes' walk from the town centre in one direction and not much more to a lovely large park in the other. In the next street is a large selection of restaurants and take-aways from many different nationalities, and many lovely pubs, coffee shops and Bedford's lovely Embankment all within walking distance. There is a reasonably-priced gym with heated pool across the road, which we haven't listed with amenities because it isn't quite free. There is a bus stop about two minutes' walk away with easy access to Cambridge, Milton Keynes and Oxford. The train station is seven minutes' walk, and London 37 minutes away. Please note, this is our home! It is awesome and huge and interesting and full of history and beautiful antiques and books – and three generations – and we love it, but it is NOT: an hotel, a business or a professional Bed & Breakfast. (Nor is it a student hostel either.) What you can expect: all the luxury we can give you; interesting people round the kitchen table every evening; a number of pets rather more beautiful than they are clever; books all over the place; a shared family bathroom; for us to take all the care of you we possibly can and a bit more. What you should not expect: staff; everything to be tidy all the time; not a speck of dust anywhere; a lock on your bedroom door; an en suite shower for each room; the wardrobe and drawers to be absolutely empty; a landlady in curlers. The bell for service in the Blue Guest Room is a JOKE. I may well make you a cup of tea if I have a pot on the go in the kitchen anyway (I usually have) but that is an extra free service and not included in the price. And the person helping us keep this vast home clean (a task rivalling the painting of the Forth Bridge or the labour of Sisyphus) is a young student who is absolutely smashing and we adore her, but she is fairly inexperienced and also occasionally has an essay crisis or goes on holiday... PLEASE NOTE; the weekly and monthly discounts are for midweek bookings only (usually Sunday to Friday, checking out for the weekend; though very occasionally we might need the room vacated for a night midweek). This is because most of our Airbnb income now derives from weekend houseparties, when we need every room, so it is not possible to make individual rooms available at weekends (though they may occasionally be, specially in the winter). There is no facility on the Airbnb website to exclude weekend nights and still offer a weekly or monthly discount, so please note that that weekly and monthly bookings exclude weekends. Because of no weekend availability, our individual rooms are now listed at an approximate 60% discount on the original charge of a year or two ago, making them exceptional value.