Bed-er Than Ever!

Out with the old mattresses.  Aren't dock carts great?

Remember “The Princess and the Pea” childhood fable?  The royal family secretly tested their son’s beloved's pedigree by seeing if she noticed the pea inserted under her 20-high stack of mattresses.  She did, and thus was considered suitable princess material for their heir to the throne after all.

While good pure peasant blood flows through my veins, I, too would pass that princess test.  Despite my relatively Bohemian lifestyle, I’ve been known to hump along a queen-sized (inflatable) mattress on long backpacking trips.  Not to mention my pickiness about my be-it-ever-so-humble-there’s-no-place-like-home mattress.

Looking more like "home."

Thus, I gave perhaps unduly high priority to replacing the stinky, shredded, piece-mealed cushions which passed for our “master” (and only) “bedroom” mattress in our v-berth. After all, unless we’re significantly more gainfully employed next hurricane season or while cruising, we blew through a year’s worth of our cruising budget in primarily safety replacements and upgrades.

When our newfound Ortega Landing Marina friends Lena and Larry of Hobo raved about their new mattress from Vickie at Blue Wave, I called.

This comforter from Jack and Diane warms our hearts and
our souls on chilly Jacksonville winter nights aboard.

No “princess,” Wayne misses the easier access to the under-mattress v-berth tools when they were cushions.  While the new mattress is designed to fold back vertically down the middle, it’s bulky and designed more for sleeping on than moving).  But Wayne wisely decided a less cranky, no longer sleep deprived and stiff-backed wife was in his best interest after all.

As Jacksonville’s temperatures shifted from sweaty to chilly (click here for that), and even icy (click here for that), a few days before another forecasted cold snap, another marina friend stepped up to our recumbent rescue. “Going through my cabinets, I realized we don’t use this quilt any more.  Do you want it?” offered Diane of Moonglow.  “Yes, please!” I gratefully responded, in the hopes that asking forgiveness rather than permission of my darling minimalist husband was my best bet for fending off another case of the shivers.

Indeed, not only did the quilt provide much needed warmth above and beyond our summer-weight blankets, our v-berth looks and feels much more like home.

Diane and Jack, comforter benefactors.  Photo pilfered from
www.facebook.com/pages/The-Marina-at-Ortega-Landing

Thank you (Jack and) Diane!  Every night as we slide into our v-berth, we appreciate your generosity, as we click our heels together (hard not to do as the foot of our v-berth bed is only 18” wide) and sigh, “There’s no place like home” (even though we do still dream of sleeping on a queen-sized mattress in a bedroom with a ceiling with more than 3 feet of headroom).

Sweet dreams to all, and to all a good night!