Wokery gone mad

And now we have fitted bottom sheets, the ironing of which provides a useful introduction to non-Euclidean geometry.

Ironing?

Remove from washing line (or this time of year, the tumble dryer) put on bed.

We have what the Swiss call Jersey Stretch bottom sheets, which are slightly elasticated and therefore don't need ironing. Fit 'em on the mattress and they flatten out.

WHS!

Who on earth irons them? I do admit that hanging them out to dry can be 'interesting' though.

Which implies such an excess of daughters, that you must order them by size.

I was in Northern Germany - about as far to the north as you could go without getting your feet wet - and it was the same there.

Agreed. Heating? In a bedroom!?! In my parents house, the _only_ time a bedroom was ever heated was the day I was born there.

There are only two - but at the time they were small. Now they are in their

Not true, our last house was built in 1957 and had fireplaces in both downstairs reception rooms and both bedrooms above them. Having said that one of our technicians lived in a terraced house where the chimney went up the middle of the house and he preferred to use the coal fire the heated brickwork effectively heated the bedrooms above.

Max Demian <max snipped-for-privacy@bigfoot.com wrote:

My grandmother was one of those servants in a Victorian House in Chiswick built around 1870 living in accommodation in a couple of attic rooms The family she worked for moved out in 1937 but being good people arranged a mortgage for her to buy it ,my Grandad hardly earn’t anything due to injuries in the trenches of WW1. She had to rent out the rooms she once lived in and the 2nd floor below ,had gas fires fitted in place of the coal grates with the tenants paying with coin meters, she kept coal herself as she preferred a real fire. She finally paid off the mortgage in 1971 having worked as a domestic beyond normal retirement age My parents rented the 2nd floor after they wed and I spent the first 7 years of my life there . It was always quite cold and Hot water both in our bit and grans was from Gas fired Ascot Geysers. Ironically when she had been a servant there was a coal fired boiler with piped hot water to all floors but that fell into disuse after she bought it. In fact she never had enough money to really modernise it and the Luftwaffe removing the roof and part of the walls didn’t help. No power sockets were installed till 1958. I don’t think a char lady could hope to buy a house in Chiswick now. Mother and I moved out in 1962 after Cancer got Dad. We moved to N Devon to stay on a relatives Farm, That was November 1962 ,we soon missed those gas fires in an old stone farmhouse with the only heat from a 90 year old range and the only electric from a 2kW Lister generator whose output you rationed around appliances .Ie you could have lights or a kettle but not lights and a kettle. I’ve appreciated the ease which the “Main”s can deliver power which our forebears could only dream about ever since.

GH

I leave such things to those better able to understand them.

Wow...

The months just after November 1962 must have been particularly trying.

As a child I had the innocence that accompanies it and didn’t realise the efforts the adults were putting in to get things done, One thing that I still remember was having left a London primary school with its daily issue of milk and radiators and moving to a village two room school where the rooms were heated FSVO by cast iron coal burning stoves once the cold really set in the milk was replaced by hot chocolate or cocoa , thought that was really luxurious.Once the snows cleared my teacher who passed the gate used to pick me up on her lambretta scooter so I could never be late. Though once she got married and moved I then had to cycle the 3 miles. I was late once cos I got a lift in on a Steam Roller instead.

GH

Or put in linen cupboard for next time. That involves a bit more effort as they have to be folded first, and fitted sheets are quite awkward to fold neatly.

I still do, on the "layers" principle. It's a lot easier to get the temperature comfortable by removing/adding layers. For me, when I've had to use them in hotels or staying with friends, beds using duvets come in two temperatures - too hot or too cold...

In the end it's just a matter of what you prefer, I guess.

After the war my dad brought home some army blankets, they were very heavy, but they were very warm.

Making a bed with a fitted bottom sheet and a duvet is so much easier than with sheets and blankets, especially if not fitted. You're hardly "making" it at all, just putting the duvet straight.

Duvets are often in 9 and 4.5 tog, and can be clipped together to make