From Oz to Oslo

For Norwegians, this is nothing old-fashioned nor a nationwide symptom of unhappy marriages. From my interrogations of the locals, there seem to be two key reasons why Norwegians prefer the double-duvet system:
• Warmth: Since you don’t have to share your blanket with anyone, you can tuck the covers in around you so that you’re warm and as snug as a bug in a rug. Oppositely, I have heard that having your own blanket is a good way to avoid the warmth from too much body heat, and it allows you to stick out an arm or a leg on either side of your covers to regulate your body temperature. (However, if separate duvets are part of a nighttime cool-down strategy, I don’t know why the trend hasn’t caught on in Australia!)
• Duvet tug-of-war: Your own blanket means you don’t need to worry about your partner inadvertently hogging all the covers in their sleep, leaving you to wake up shivering and blanket-less in the wee hours of the morning. (For me, this second point is the most significant, as I have several times stood accused as a no-good blanket stealer. )

When I first saw the twin-covers system, without knowing its normality, I assumed the person I was going to be sharing with was striving to send bedtime “you stay on your side of the bed” signals. Indeed, even in hotels the beds often have two separate duvets, and in homewares catalogues the new bed-set patterns are often displayed on a pair of covers (see above).

When I mention this duvet-duo trend to friends back home in Australia, the first question is always a bashful “But how do you, erm... cuddle?” Well, usually you just meet somewhere in the middle and overlap the duvets so it’s like one large blanket. The second question is always an even more bashful “And how do you, er... um...?” Well, in that case the blankets are usually just put to one side until they’re needed again.

Happy snoozing!