Dilemma

My two youngest have lovely soft blankets on their beds. Baby soft, furry, snuggly, blankets, with satin-feel borders. One in pink, the other in blue. They love them. Originally, the beds were made up with a sheet, and the blanket on top, but they prefer to sleep directly under their much-loved blankets. They just love the softness, the furriness, against their skins. The sheet has been eschewed (I love that word). If it’s cold, they will have a duvet, but over the top of the blanket, not instead of it. They sometimes bring the blankets downstairs, to snuggle under while watching television, and then they take them back up at bedtime, and wrap up like caterpillars on their beds, (and of course they drag the blankets along the floor, gathering dust and fluff as they go).

I’m happy that they associate bedtime with comfort and snuggliness. I do wonder, though, if it matters, having a bedding situation that is different to everyone else’s. It didn’t bother me in America, because I never worked out what was normal bedding. What’s a comforter? Is it a duvet, or a bedspread? Then what about a quilt? Do you put that on top of a comforter, or use it instead of one? And I decided early on that I wasn’t going to mess with the variety of pillows, of which you seem to require a huge number per bed, including a couple of “shams”, whatever those are. But now we’re back in the UK, I feel a need to opt into normalcy (disappointing of me, I know). What do you think? Is there a “normal” when it comes to bedding? Does it matter? Time for a survey, I think. Cast your vote. It's over on the right hand sidebar.

I would like to be a medieval peasant

I would like to be a medieval peasant. 11-yo has been learning about them in History, and I’ve decided I want to be one.

No waiting in for Telecoms Engineers.

No seven-week wait for internet access.

No phoning PlusNet because the promised router hasn’t arrived in the post. After seven weeks.

No having to take back a faulty mobile phone to Tesco to be exchanged.

No aggravating washer-dryer which shrinks your fleeces and your sons’ favourite team sports tops, even on the lowest setting.

No customer care helplines who purport to want to register your appliance so they can activate the warranty, but who in reality want the opportunity to sell you various options for extended warranties, which you can’t say “no” to until you’ve listened to the tedious details, because you’re too polite to interrupt someone talking at you in full flow.

No wrangling with moving companies about insurance claims for broken items.

No having to decide whether to start the laptop in safe mode or not, on the basis of less than zero knowledge of what that means.

No intermittent fault on the new microwave, so that it cuts out randomly. Alas, I see another customer care helpline in my near future. 

 

No having to set the date and time on endless appliances to the sound of electronic beeps.

No having to choose between thirty-five thousand different house insurance companies.

No lengthy forms to fill in register at a GP’s surgery.

No having to remember to put the paper between the name tape and the iron, unless you want a white sticky mess on the plate of the iron.

No having to going to Pilates.

And I bet a first class stamp didn’t cost 60p.

It’s back to the Dark Ages for me. Bring it on. Scratchy clothes, cold house, mud everywhere, matted hair, warty face. Untreated verrucas on your children’s feet. Wattle and daub (whatever that was). Nothing to look forward to except jolly wassailing at Yuletide, followed by the Black Death. I suppose I might miss my creature comforts, but at least no-one would say to me “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”