It's that time of year again. And it never fails to elicit a surprised "already!?", followed by a "I can hardly believe six months has gone by" from my husband. Who is himself quite meticulous about household chores. Let alone performing with diligence many customary actions which I will not name, having nothing whatever to do with the seasons.

But yes, it certainly is that time of year. And faithfully, twice yearly, since we first bought our comfortable Queen-size pillow-top mattress, guaranteed for a lifetime (hah!) we have followed instructions. Silk-side up in the spring through summer to fall, and wool side up in the fall through winter to spring. Not that eyeballing the mattress leaves you any the wiser. Whichever side happens to be up seasonally, they both look the same.

As for turning over a mattress on a regular basis, it makes good sense. We used to not only flip it over but also turn it from bottom to top, to ensure that our sleeping patterns were equally distributed over time on the mattress, so no dips and bumps occurred, should they secretly conspire to appear. We don't do that any longer; too awkward, too heavy, too difficult to manoeuvre. Flipping the mattress is enough of an endeavour, we figured.

And so it was that today was the day for wool-side-up. And just incidentally a change in the ornamental-function bed-covering as well. From the cheerfully-patterned floral, light quilt that we have been using through the summer months to a still-cheerful and bright floral patterned, much bulkier quilt that we throw over our feather-duvet in the winter. I haven't yet placed the winter-weight duvet on the bed. The lighter-weight polyester-fibre duvet we bought several months back still gives us sufficient warmth before the real onset of cold.

Now the bed, our night-time comfort to aid us in deep slumber ensuring adequate rest for us to tackle each day ahead, has been dressed for winter. For the first few days it will present as a pleasant little shock to our eyes, and then we'll be accustomed to the visual change. Meanwhile, it's a perk-up.