On Duvets

Duvets are one of the most intriguing and best things ever invented.

Some facts:

Our first duvet was bought when duvets were still a novelty: in 1969 in a Scandinavian bedroom shop in Shandwick Place, Edinburgh. (Sorry but as I could actually remember that I wasn't going to waste it).

As Frances said recently if you put a duvet cover into a washing machine (or a tumble drier for that matter) everything else ends up inside it.

The theory of getting a duvet cover onto a duvet (or a duvet into a duvet cover depending on which way you do it) is easy. The practice is not.

IKEA used to produce duvet covers with the most useful of designs whereby one can put one's hand into the 'closed' end of the duvet cover to draw the duvet into it. See pic. Why did they stop doing that? Why has no-one copied the idea?

Duvets are a superb relationship guide. When you stop having fun and laughing when you jointly try and put a duvet and a cover together to form a single item, then your relationship is not what it should be.

What Did You Do This Afternoon?

I will bet any one of you (and I am definitely not a gambling man) that not a single Blogger in the world did what I did this afternoon.  I hope that I never have to be assessed for my mental stability because I'm pretty sure that even the most broad-minded and experienced psychiatrists would begin to have their doubts if they were to discover my secret.  Of course whilst it's a secret at the moment (simply because no one knows what I've done) by the time the first person has read this post it will no longer be one.

I fitted my bed with skis.

Why?  It had castors but they just dug into the carpet when I tried to pull it out from between the fixed bed-side cabinets.  I put silicone sliders under the castors.  They were unsightly and not particularly effective.  Then I had the idea of skis.  Fitting them was not the quick and simple solution I envisaged but an afternoon later they are on.  Are they any better?  Well they do spread the load of the bed on the carpet and I could move the bed very easily until I put the drawers back.  Therein lies the problem.  Each drawer when full is very hard to lift.  Four of them added to the weight of the mattress ensures that a lot of effort is needed to move the bed.  Hey ho.  At least I tried.  And it rained most of the day so  I couldn't go out and play in the garden. Wotthehellarchiewotthehell.

You Don't Need To Know This

And probably don't want to know either.

I've been back in Eagleton for 5 sleeps.  Now what you have to know to appreciate what I'm going to tell you is that I usually put my head on the pillow (ok that's not unusual) and sleep pretty solidly for 5 or 6 hours and then wake up and get up.  I usually do all that without as much as a ruffle of the bedclothes.  But these last five sleeps have been rather odd.  In one way that is.  Each morning when I've woken I've looked up at the clock and put my hand out for my glass of water and neither has been there.  They've been an extra three feet away.  I've woken up on the other side of the bed.  Now that's hardly earth-shattering news but I can never recall it happening before in the 10 years that I've slept in that bed on my own!  So why now?

There you are I told you you wouldn't want to know that.  You read it anyway.  So don't blame me!

Which Side of the Bed?

I had an odd experience in bed last night.  I woke up in the middle of the bed.  

I will explain.  My bed in Eagleton is a double bed and in The Cottage it is a queen size.  I sleep on the left hand side as you look at it from the foot of the bed.  Still awake?  The bed I am sleeping on at Mike and Sandra's is a double bed.  For two nights I have slept in the middle of the bed.  I've never done that before.  Why now?  Does it matter?  No, of course it doesn't.  But I am just that little bit curious.

The Virtue of Getting Up Early

I mentioned, en passant, in an email to Pat that various things had happened since I'd risen at 0551. Her reply included the rejoinder "What is virtuous about getting up in the middle of the night?".

Now I (and I'm not alone 'cos CJ is the same) don't regard that as the middle of the night - certainly not when the hours of daylight are so long in the summer in the Hebrides. However it made me realise what a very good question Pat had posed. I hadn't consciously meant to imply that I was being virtuous as such, simply that I had been up for a long time. However there is no doubt that those of us who rise early (and go to bed late as well!) do feel virtuous. In reality I don't suppose that we are although I'm sure that after a reading of the Good Book and consideration of the (now) Seven Deadly Sins I'm sure that, as Archie and Mehitabel's fly would have said "i could have made out a case for myself too if i had had a better line of talk."

Oddly enough although I don't feel any need to comment more on virtuosity (or is it virtuousness?) I now feel the need to explain why I get up so early. My Mum's natural bedtime was 0220. Why? I don't know although she liked the peace and quiet of the night to read and study. Those are two desires with which I've never been afflicted so I can't claim that. However I've never needed much sleep and when I do put my head on the pillow I usually sleep extremely soundly for up to 5 hours. As a rule when I wake I rise immediately although I confess that that's getting less the case as I grow older (and, for some reason, I don't rise straight away when I'm in New Zealand).

When I worked I 'needed' the time to do all the things I had to fit into the day. Now that I'm retired I need the time to do all the things that I want to fit into the day. So no change there then apart from the fact that I don't actually have to do very much that I don't want to do. Life is good. I enjoy it very much. I want as much of it as I can have and whilst I'm still able to do the things I want to do. Those things are not done alone in bed. It's a personal thing.

So I'll try not to tell people when I got up in future and, if I do, please understand that I'm not trying to be virtuous. Unless, of course, I have that smug smile of virtuousness on may face.