Mattresses

One of my projects, when I finish all the others, is to write a book on memorisation, and techniques for memorising things, such as poems, Scripture, play scripts, speeches. I haven't yet seen a book that really gets to grips with most of these, though it may be out there hiding from me.

I was reminded of this (memory technique!) by seeing the phrase memory foam topper. I had to go and check it out. Turns out it merely means material that, when you put your hand behind it, retains the shape of your hand. Or, more correctly, when you're trying to get to sleep, it takes on the contours of your body. It sort of sounds useful, though I'm not entirely convinced. In the same advertising there's something called convoluted toppers, which turn out to look like a large extended egg carton that you sleep on. You can use the peaks up or down, depending on your preference. I don't see me sleeping on this stuff personally, although no doubt there are people who swear by it. I'd probably have nightmares about being an egg whose shell was breaking.

We've got a good solid mattress on our bed that we've now had for a number of years; it has give in it, but not enough to give way, so you're always feeling firmly supported. The bed at our daughter's house in Christchurch (where we were babysitting for the last few days) is similar: you have none of that awful sinking feeling when you get into it. The mattress we had for a number of years (before the current one) used to throw us together in the middle of the bed. This has its points but isn't ideal long-term.

I'm not sure that mattresses that take on the shape of your body are actually better for you than ones that give you firm support. Each to his/her own, I guess.

The confusing world of mattress toppers

Be careful how you write. And be careful what you go looking up on the Net.

I was searching for the combo of writing and the phrase mattress topper tonight, and came across a site where someone is describing Memory Foam Pillows and Mattress Pad Memory Foam. I can sort of understand what a memory foam pillow might be, but the second phrase seems a bit out of kilter. This pretty much goes for the rest of the article as well, where we're told the memory foam contains unique properties that no more pillows can match. I presume we mean no mere pillows?

Further down the page we have this interesting statement: Memory foam has mass-produced its way into the forefront ever since it was found that the foam molds to the shape of your body applying your body's have heat. You can understand what it means, but you wonder how the words got into that arrangement.

But that last sentence wasn't anywhere near as scary as this one: With a memory foam cervical pillow, your head and neck remain aligned with your spine as you sleep. I struggled at first to think what word should be there instead of 'cervical,' but it turns out in fact that though I thought cervical only applied to a certain kind of cancer women get - relating to the neck of the womb, apparently - the word is also used for the neck and upper spine area and is perfectly correct.

So I learned something, at least, from this article!

Anyway, all that aside, the article this comes from is listed as being written by one Frank Vanderlugt, with the date Mon Dec 26th, 2005 beside his name. But on another site the credit is given to Chris Rodriguez. According to another site, Chris Rodriguez is an EzineArticles.com Expert Author. Obviously a complete command of the English language isn't required of Expert Authors.

The plot thickens. At the bottom of the first article, we have this comment: Chris Rodriguez is andy skinner and webmaster for duvet-n-more.com. Chris is Andy? Or is she Mr Vanderlught? I don't know who anyone is!

How did I get into this? I was only looking at mattress toppers!

Beds and beds

One of the joys of being away on holiday for nearly six months was the variety of mattresses and beds we encountered. In general we couldn’t complain, although there were one or two beds that squeaked every time you moved and they weren’t fun to be on.
It was a kind of three bears situation: some of the beds were too hard, some were too soft, and some were just right.
Somewhere there was a bed that was exceedingly hard, but it was nothing to a bed we once struck at a hostel in Roxburgh. I flopped down onto it, as one does (!) and nearly broke my back. It was like falling on concrete. I don’t know whether it was the mattress or the bed itself that was the problem, but I have never come across a bed that was so hard to lie on in my life. It had absolutely no ‘give’, so that you couldn’t get comfortable however you tried. I might as well have slept straight on the floor, because I wouldn’t have noticed any difference.
It was a delight to return to our own bed, finally, and be able to relax. Somehow or other, when we bought this bed, we managed to pick one that suited us down to the ground.
We had to sleep for a few nights after Christmas in our old bed, as my daughter and her family were staying here, and needed to be close to their two young children during the night. How we managed to sleep comfortably in that old bed for so many years is now a mystery to me. Yet it suited us during most of the time our kids were growing up. Perhaps we’ve got spoiled with the new bed!