Stella and I went out for a shopping-date yesterday, and after some superb Thai food we ended up in Dunelm Mill, a cornucopia of discount fabrics, homewares and soft furnishings at reasonable prices. There were loads of reductions in the Sale, so we went on a bargain hunt.
I headed straight for the bedding - strange behaviour, you might think, for a tools-and-gadget-loving male. Perhaps I should explain...
I have a problem with pillows. I've tried many in the past, looking for the one that will give me a consistently good night's sleep. They never deliver. The last one I bought was a 'rebound pillow', which was meant to return to its former shape time and again. After a few weeks, however, it ended up like all the others; supportive at the edges but with a void in the middle that no amount of tugging, pummeling or shaking could remedy.
Maybe I have a heavy head? Stella's head is about the same size and weight as mine but her pillows remain annoyingly serviceable. I've even tried stealing them, but once they get under my head they're doomed and the same cavity soon develops. Maybe I roll around or kneel up and repeatedly head-butt the pillow in my sleep? It's possible, but since I'm asleep I've no idea. What I do know, though, is that I've been waking up tired and with headaches and neck pain for months.
I'd heard of memory foam before. Apparently developed by NASA, it responds to your body and moulds itself to your shape before returning to normal when you get up. And it's usually quite expensive, so I was intrigued to find memory foam pillows in Dunelm Mill at discount prices. One pillow from their most expensive range was on display with an invitation to "touch me". So I did. I can't say I was impresssed.
My hand sank into it, and when I let go it popped back out, but it looked and felt and even smelled pretty much like a block of bog-standard foam I could have bought on the market for a couple of quid. Undecided, I stood there pushing and squashing it for a while, walked away then came back again and squished it some more. Surely there must be something to this memory foam thing?
Eventually, lured by a 50% discount and sheer nocturnal desperation, I bought it.
That same evening I put it on my bed and when night came I lowered my head, waiting for paradise.
It felt like a block of foam. My head sank in a bit and then stopped, so I lay there for a while, determined to give it a chance.
"Feels a lot firmer than my old pillow," I grumbled. Then I fell asleep.
My first thought when I woke up, though, was how comfortable I felt. I felt like I'd slept, too; there was no dull, slow awakening, no residual headache and my neck didn't hurt. Even now, six hours later as I sit typing, my neck feels better than it has in a long time.
Have I discovered the perfect pillow? Only time will tell, but if I have then it will have been money well spent, every penny of it. I'll report back in a few weeks, but in the meantime,
have you tried memory foam? If so, what did you think?
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
A Letter From The President
Recently, in the bicentennial year of Abraham Lincoln's birth, a letter sent by the famous president was sold for £36,000.
Big deal, you might say. What's so special about that? Well, what's special about this letter is not so much who sent it but who it was sent to.
You see, this letter, delivered nearly 150 years ago, was sent to an eight-year-old schoolboy.
The story is an interesting one. As a young boy, George Patten was with his journalist father when they both met the commander-in-chief. When he went back to school George excitedly reported the encounter to his classmates and teacher - but nobody took him seriously.
Mocked by his disbelieving classmates George stuck to his story to such an extent that his exasperated teacher wrote to the president. And back, by return, came a hand-written, signed letter.
It read: "Whom it may concern, I did see and talk with master George Evans Patten, last May, at Springfield, Illinois. Respectfully, A Lincoln."
What's so precious about this letter is that it was sent just two weeks after the president's inauguration. At such a time, having just become the most powerful man in the nation at a critical moment in its history, I'm sure Lincoln had many worthy things he could have devoted his energies to. I'm sure there were many important documents waiting to be read and signed, people to meet and places to go, but it says something about the man that he recognised the importance of this simple plea for help and responded, settling all doubt. Now, nobody could ever say again that George Patten had not met with Lincoln.
The parallel for us is simple yet profound. No matter how unimportant we may feel, our prayers before God carry the same weight as those uttered by the great and powerful. No matter how personal our request may seem, God never writes it off as unimportant or not worth considering. God, like Lincoln, resists the modern tendency to lump people into categories and instead sees the value of each individual. And, like Lincoln, each individual gets his undivided attention and a personal response.
So next time you get down to pray, remember Lincoln's letter and realise that the author of all time and space just put down his pen for a moment to listen to you.
Big deal, you might say. What's so special about that? Well, what's special about this letter is not so much who sent it but who it was sent to.
You see, this letter, delivered nearly 150 years ago, was sent to an eight-year-old schoolboy.
The story is an interesting one. As a young boy, George Patten was with his journalist father when they both met the commander-in-chief. When he went back to school George excitedly reported the encounter to his classmates and teacher - but nobody took him seriously.
Mocked by his disbelieving classmates George stuck to his story to such an extent that his exasperated teacher wrote to the president. And back, by return, came a hand-written, signed letter.
It read: "Whom it may concern, I did see and talk with master George Evans Patten, last May, at Springfield, Illinois. Respectfully, A Lincoln."
What's so precious about this letter is that it was sent just two weeks after the president's inauguration. At such a time, having just become the most powerful man in the nation at a critical moment in its history, I'm sure Lincoln had many worthy things he could have devoted his energies to. I'm sure there were many important documents waiting to be read and signed, people to meet and places to go, but it says something about the man that he recognised the importance of this simple plea for help and responded, settling all doubt. Now, nobody could ever say again that George Patten had not met with Lincoln.
The parallel for us is simple yet profound. No matter how unimportant we may feel, our prayers before God carry the same weight as those uttered by the great and powerful. No matter how personal our request may seem, God never writes it off as unimportant or not worth considering. God, like Lincoln, resists the modern tendency to lump people into categories and instead sees the value of each individual. And, like Lincoln, each individual gets his undivided attention and a personal response.
So next time you get down to pray, remember Lincoln's letter and realise that the author of all time and space just put down his pen for a moment to listen to you.
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