For me, the mention of flannelette generally brings to mind childhood pyjamas, single beds and early nights.
All that changed on the first night of our current house-sit.
At the moment we’re living in Hazelbrook in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.
That means very cold nights and the heater running constantly.
This is the first place with flannelette sheets. Until now, everywhere has had cotton sheets. Some have had very high thread counts and so are luxurious and lovely to sleep on. Others haven’t had the thread count but we’ve been used to plain cotton sheets in various states.
(I know, I know – technically flannelette is cotton, just woven in a different way to what I’m referring to as normal cotton sheets, but for the purpose of this, it’s different.)
As a result, climbing into bed on a cold winter night has had considerable shock value. This means that even though you’re nice and warm and drowsy, ready to go to sleep, as soon as you hit the sheets you’re wide awake again.
During the night I’d avoid moving because the spot I was lying in was nicely warmed but a millimeter either side of me tended to be chilling.
Having Sancho warm the bed in advance does have value but he has limited size compared to Danita or me and so only a part of the bed would get warmed.
Also, I don’t like electric blankets. Even just to warm the bed initially – you certainly don’t keep them running through the night – never felt comfortable.
And so, on our first night in Hazelbrook, when we climbed into a bed with flannelette sheets it was a big surprise.
They weren’t warm in the way electric blankets warm the bed, but they didn’t have that initial shock value of lying on a block of ice like other sheets.
My preconceptions about flannelette being for kiddy pjs have now been completely thrown out and we’ve decided that when the time comes for us to purchase bed linen there will be a winter set of flannelette included (along with the high thread count normal cotton sheets). (This is one of the great advantages of house-sitting – you get to try all sorts of options and scenarios you wouldn’t normally go for.)
We haven’t yet had a place with silk or satin sheets so there’s still something to look forward to. However, I suspect these are definitely for summer.
For now, we’re enjoying climbing into bed and having a very pleasant drift off to sleep.
BTW if I start talking about the sandman and the sleep fairy you’ll know I’ve completely regressed 🙂
And the photo at the beginning is from nearby – NOT the view we have out the window.