Warmth in Winter

When I was a kid, my family moved with my father's job to Copenhagen, Denmark. There were lots of cool things about living there; travel, culture, history, but the neatest things I came across and what I carry with me to this day from the Great Frozen North are the covers on my bed.

We went to Denmark from Houston, Texas, where covers on your bed were really just a formality. You certainly didn't need them to keep warm - warm was the default state of existence in Houston and covers were usually kicked off. They were a nod to tradition, but not technically necessary for sleep.

In Denmark, people used eiderdown comforters. I loved them! At the time I was 11 years old and I didn't realize that all those little eider ducks had to die to make me toasty. Even in summer, the comforters were nice for optimum snoozability. In winter they were crucial. In Danish they were called a"dyne" which looks like its pronounced "dine" but its not. Pronounced correctly and passed through my American filter, it comes out "doona".

Nowadays, there are dyne fillers that are synthetic and much cheaper than genuine duck down. Plus you don't have to denude a little duck butt to get it. I like the down ones, though, because, well, because, oh heck, I'm a pig, they're nicer than the fake ones. Sorry ducks.

There's a bit of science to sleeping properly under a dyne. You lay still and don't flap the covers around because you are busy generating a warm air pocket around yourself. If you want to turn over, you can't raise the covers up and flip, you have to slowly rearrange your body so the air pocket stays intact. It becomes second nature quickly when you're a kid. When you're trying to drum this behavior into your grown up hubby's head - it can take 25 - 30 years.

I usually get in bed before the hub-unit and get a nice envelope of temperate air generated. He comes in and instead of raising a tiny flap of dyne and sliding under the covers, he raises his whole side of the dyne and breeches my air pocket! He has improved over the years but since we only use the dyne in cold weather, he has to relearn the procedure every winter. My hub is good at a great many things getting into bed with a dyne is not always one of them.

Anyway, I was thinking about stapling his side down, but that would probably damage the dyne. But I'm cool with his misappropriation of my air pocket as long as it only happens once or twice a year. I enjoy my dyne. It reminds me of my childhood in Denmark. In Denmark I learned that Gorm the Old was the first Viking king, beer is good, and that nothing beats a dyne for a great night's sleep!