Palliasses

By: Blonde Two

I have done a few adventurous things in my life so far and hope to do a fair few more but I have never slept on a palliasse.  A palliasse, as far as my Blonde knowledge allows, is a sack that you fill with straw to make a warm and ?comfortable? mattress on which to spend the night.  I am obviously a fairly modern camper because I sleep on a Thermarest which is a sack that you fill with air to make a warm and ?comfortable? mattress.  The advantage of a Thermarest over a palliasse is of course that you are more likely to have air available than straw.

I am fairly convinced that the Swallows and Amazons slept on palliasses but am struggling to find the evidence to prove this.  I think they wandered around with sacks until kind farmers gave them straw with which to fill them.  This was probably at the same time as the kind farmers giving them milk.  It was either them or the Famous Five. If anyone knows, please do put me out of my misery as I have been pondering the question for a fair few hours now.

There was a lovely looking hill available for my sister and I to climb today but we chose relaxation of a far more lazy kind instead.  We spent the day in the sunshine lying around on beanbags which must surely be the modern version of palliasses.  I am sure that John, Susan, Titty and Roger would have disapproved of these bright interlopers but we had a lovely time!