The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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8:32am on Sunday, 23rd August, 2026:
Anecdote
When we got our bed nine years ago, it was short of casters. While we awaited some from the manufacturers, which took a couple of months, there was one missing on my side of the bed in the middle. This caused a slight dip that had the effect of very slightly angling me towards the edge of the bed.
The dip went when we received the new casters, but we had a mattress that used memory foam. It kept its form, and continued with the slight angling. As a result, over the years, it gradually moved my sleeping position towards the edge of the bed, until eventually it reached it. Then, all pretence that I was sleeping in a slowly-moving hollow disappeared, and I was sleeping while teetering on the edge of a cliff.
For my birthday in January, my elder daughter bought me a pair of Victorian books about Yorkshire characters (most of whom turned out to be vile, but it claimed to be fact rather than fiction). Having finished the books, I put them underneath the mattress at my side to level it out some.
Surprisingly, it worked. The slight pull of gravity to the edge was replaced by a slight pull towards the centre. Give it another four or five years, and I'll be able to remove the books, making the bed be as it should be. My wife is currently talking about getting a new bed, but she takes so long to make decisions about household furniture that it could well be in the next decade when she suddenly announces we're going to the bed shop.
This book-levelling trick would, of course, be unavailable to princesses, bothered by anything the size of a pea or greater as they are.
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Copyright © 2026 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).