In our last apartment, the bed was all of 140cm wide. It was cosy to say the least. Spooning was essential and turning over had to be synchronised to avoid knees in unwelcome places and elbows to unsuspecting heads.
Our current apartment is bigger. Yes, we’re luxuriating in all 66 square metres of space and our water views are expansive. The bed is also bigger, but therein lies another dilemma. It’s the Swedish two-beds-in-one problem. It’s quite literally, two beds side by side. There’s a fault-line right down the middle. There are two mattresses and two duvets. It’s complicated.
Also, we don’t really know the protocol regarding who invites whom over to play, so we’re trying to be fair and equal and hopefully, suitably Swedish. The fact is, we’re used to the one bed concept so despite the bountiful space, the enforced lack of proximity (no one likes sleeping on the join) and the sheer independence of the sleeping experience is unfamiliar and frankly, unacceptable.
Perhaps the Swedes think sharing a mattress, duvet and skin flakes is altogether too disgusting. I don’t know. Can anyone please explain?
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Maybe it is less to do with Swedish distaste for skin flakes and more to do with their predilection for small apartments in tall buildings with miniature rooms, skinny corridors and narrow doors. Even getting an Aussie double bed up the stairs in my Aussie townhouse almost caused grooves in the expensively rented walls; how the previous tenants got their queen-size beds up there may account for the grooves I inherited. Two little beds are bound to be easier to get in and out of the building than one big one. So if Swedes had bigger houses and were less anxious about grooves in the walls, they might be happy to give up the grooves in the middle of their beds.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it's possible to turn the mattresses the other way, and sleep with the join horizontal, so both your butts fall into it, instead of you falling into each other? And yeah, you need to get rid of the two doona thing. That can't be healthy. You may as well have separate rooms! x
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