Complaints from a Winter Bed

I can imagine what kind of comments I would get if this were a mail in your responses or questions . Indulge me if you please .



Dear powmill ,

I have a winter bed . But I can't seem to get comfortable after the first night . What's going on ?

           puff puzzled

How to Snuggle Down

When your winter bed is freshly made , it is puffed and fluffed and ready for you to snuggle down . This doesn't mean the bed is overly soft . That depends on your mattress . What a winter bed allows is a few inches of loft in which the shape of your body forms...the secret to the best night's sleep .

Once you have prepared for bed and have made your best entry , get into your normal sleeping position . Enjoy the sinking experience that ensues . At the end of the sinking wriggle and rock a bit to form a trough shape in the fibre/feather bed that conforms to all your bulges and divots perfectly . The unformed loft will rise around you , enveloping your body and warming to the perfect temperature ...that of you .

All night , the heat you produce is saved and returned from the loft in a continuous cycling . This bed can be very warm if you are , so only a sheet and blanket over top will be enough to maintain your comfort .

While you nestle into your winter bed and outside temperatures drop , sleep creeps gently upon you . As my husband says " It makes you want to suck your thumb ." That says it all .

Goodnight , Sweetheart of mine ! Sleep well .

How to Enter a Winter Bed

 A winter bed is high...that is probably the important thing to remember. Success of entry will depend on your age , height and agility . Many approaches exist , but here are some tried and true methods .

1. Approaching directly to the side of the bed , raise both arms together to give lift to your body as you spring into the air . You may land fully across the mattress then wriggle yourself into the correct position ; or you can execute a quarter-turn laterally midair to land prone in the appropriate orientation for sleeping .

Why ?

When I was little , we lived in an old , uninsulated house with heating provided during the day by the cooking Mum did on the wood-fired cookstove . At night , a little coal oil heater by the front door kept the house a little above freezing . The stovepipe from each of the stoves rose through a pipehole in the ceiling , on up through a bedroom and into the main chimney flu . The hotair that circulated in these pipes warmed the bedrooms.

Once the woodfire in the cookstove...