Today, we’re having the Texas equivalent of a snow day and we’ve busted out our hot water bottle to keep us cosy.
Texas homes, roads and public facilities are optimized for our hot, hot summers. Our cities don’t have the equipment to render frozen roads safe after even a touch of precipitation and our drivers don’t know how to drive on ice-glazed roads.
A light sprinkle of sleet and snow results in hundreds of accidents. Schools and universities are closed, so we’re getting an unexpected 3-day weekend.
My daughters decided to investigate what our trampoline would do if used with a nice sheet of ice over it. They had a blast, but were chilled and wet when they came back inside. I had our hot water bottle, named Pish by my 7-year-olds, filled with near boiling water and ready to help them warm up… after they changed out of their wet things.
I’m not quite sure why hot water bottles haven’t taken off in the US. I’ve only lived in California and Texas since moving to this country, so perhaps they’re commonplace further north. I don’t think so, though. When I looked on Amazon, the first product proudly declared itself “made in Germany” and the pricing made me think that you wouldn’t be able to pick one up at the grocery store.
In the UK, I grew up with hot water bottles. They’re just rubber bottles, comparable to fillable ice packs, you can fill with warm to hot water to warm up your bed, car seat or feet. They’re available at your local pharmacy; our Pish was a purchase from the pharmacy down the street from my Mum’s place in London. Most hot water bottles I’ve seen have some sort of fuzzy cover to protect the user from burns and increase the snuggle factor.
North American readers, am I just looking in the wrong place? Or have these bottles of happiness really not made it over here?
What’s your secret to being cosy when it’s cold out?
Sadia (rhymes with Nadia) has been coordinating How Do You Do It? since late 2012. She is the divorced mother of 7-year-old monozygotic twins, M and J. She lives with them and their 3 cats in the Austin, TX suburbs and works full time as a business analyst. She retired her personal blog, Double the Fun, when the girls entered elementary school and also blogs at Adoption.com and Multicultural Mothering.
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
We’ve bought ours at Walgreens/local drug store…but no cute fuzzy cover accompanied it.
Growing up, in Wisconsin, my mother had hot water bottles. And we used them in the winter/when sick. I’m trying to remember if we had cute covers or not. But, my mother was raised by an English immigrant, who more than likely used them while growing up.
Oh I have one of these! Love to snuggle with it when I’m sick. I would love a cute cover on it though… It’s so hard to keep a towel around it.
I remember using them back in the 70’s, but I use all electric things now – electric blankets for the bed an heated throws and pads.