Recently my family and I had to make a long journey from one side of the country to the other, involving a lot of time, distance and planning. It was decided that our car was sufficient for the purpose and thus we saved on the expense of hiring a larger vehicle, a decision we later came to regret. After our experience we decided that next time we would hire a blasted caravan and stuff the expense!
We are not what you would call rich, but we have a good standard of living and enjoy life’s little luxuries whenever we can afford them. One of the things that we all enjoy is sleeping and I am lucky that, unlike a lot of parents, I have not had to deal with children waking me up at the crack of dawn on weekends. In fact it is usually the other way around in my household, with my husband waking up first and then trying to get everybody else alert- although on workdays it is an uphill struggle to get him awake and coherent on time.
Last year I discovered that a local department store was having a bed linen sale and unable to resist those big red sale signs, I went in and spent a lot more money than I had planned to. I bought a set of Hungarian goose down pillows and a Hungarian goose down duvet, which I had had an eye on for some time. I then felt generous-read guilty- and decided to treat each of my children to a Siberian goose down duvet, telling myself that they had been good and deserved a treat.
Since then we have gotten used to sleeping with light but warm bedding and love curling up in front of the TV with the cosy hungarian goose down duvet on a cold wintery night, all cuddled together eating popcorn.on this journey, we sure missed our bedding- along with our beds. Frankly we would have been happy with sleeping bags and a lot more room than we had. Due to our schedule we had to travel non-stop, with us taking turns driving and trying to catch some sleep, not an easy task in a full car.
Trust me when I say that the person driving really needs to have had a good sleep because otherwise you are liable to make mistakes and drive carelessly. I found myself swerving onto the wrong side of the road at one point after lack of sleep had made me drowsy. Apart from the boredom, constant squabbling and frequent bathroom breaks the worst stress was not being able to stretch out and sleep comfortably. The journey eventually came to an end and we emerged cranky and disheveled at our destination, just in time for dinner. After refreshing ourselves and continuing with the business at hand we felt better. That is, until one of the children mentioned that we still had to face the return journey!
Here we mention the word good sleep as well. During the Crusades, Europeans espoused the Arabic process of napping on cushions terrified on the floor.
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