Not getting enough sleep? Rest like the royals with a bedroom each
I may get in trouble for this, but here goes: I tell you what is boring these days, and that is everyone being competitive about how tired they are. This is the sort of conversation I mean:
“I’m so tired.”
“Me too. I could sleep for 100 years.”
“I didn’t get to sleep until 3am last night.”
“I woke up at four and didn’t get back to sleep.”
“The kids came in at five and woke us up.”
“My dog scratched on the bedroom door at six so I had to let him out.”
You hear it everywhere – in the office, on the train, in the pub. It’s a sleep war as we all try to prove we’re the most exhausted person we know. There was the Black Death in the 14th century; the poor Victorians had scarlet fever; now, in the 21st century, we have tiredness. To try to combat this epidemic there are books on sleep, newspaper articles on sleep, sleep apps, sleep therapists, lavender drops for pillows, white noise machines and an array of alarming-looking anti-snoring gadgets on sale.
But don’t worry, fellow zombies! We can do away with all those sleep devices because the solution has been discovered by Prince Charles, according to a little story I read the other day about his sleeping arrangements. His answer is to have three bedrooms, as he and Camilla reportedly do at Clarence House. One bedroom for him, one bedroom for Camilla, one bedroom they share.
Three bedrooms. Doesn’t that just sound the ticket? If one of you fancies reading for a bit, you can do that in your own bedroom. If one of you wants to sit up watching Robot Wars, you can do that without an argument. If one of you ate too much curry for dinner and has just swallowed a Rennie, probably best off in your own bedroom for the night. You can regroup in your shared bedroom come the morning when it’s safe. It will almost certainly work if you’re single too. Tossing and turning in one bed? Just trot through to your second or third bedroom. Cool sheets and a different mattress. A change is as good as a rest and all that.
The Royals and the rich can obviously have multiple bedrooms since they tend to live in quite big houses. I’ve just finished watching series two of The Crown (is there a more magnificent actress than Claire Foy?) and although the Queen and Prince Philip only have one bedroom each, it’s a civilised set-up because the two bedrooms are connected via a gargantuan dressing room. “Oh,” says a young Queen looking confused one morning in Philip’s room, “I’ve woken up in this bed.”
How much do you use the downstairs loo really? Could you fit a mattress in there?
If you’re into the gripping BBC drama McMafia you may have spotted a similar two-bedroom arrangement with the doddery old oligarch Dimitri and his wife Oksana. (I tend to take a keen interest in the sleeping arrangements of people on telly since I am MUCH MORE TIRED THAN YOU.)
Don’t be dismayed if you only have one bedroom, though. Consider the following: have any of your children left home? If so, why not convert their rooms into your second and third bedroom? They probably won’t mind. Likewise if you have an unused attic or garage. And how much do you use the downstairs loo really? Could you fit a mattress in there? Or why not go the full Harry Potter and transform that space under the stairs for extra bedrooms? Cosy.
There was just one small line in this bedroom story about Prince Charles and Camilla I worried about, which said that Camilla now has so many clothes she’s running out of space to store them. According to a “Royal pal”, there are racks of clothes in the communal areas of Clarence House and the situation has reached “crisis point”. I suppose if you do insist on turning all the rooms of your house into bedrooms, then space may become a problem. But I’m not here to solve your storage problems, sorry. I’m merely offering up an à la mode suggestion for sleeping properly.
