In the first days after we arrived in Oostende, one of the most popular complaints was about the beds. They were too small, uncomfortable and in some cases, had some suspicious stains on them. I was a little surprised to see this become the focal issue of the "Sunparks Scandal" because my bed actually scores pretty low on my list of things to complain about at Sunparks.

It looks clean (maybe I was lucky), I sleep well in it (perhaps my back is in better shape than some other people's) and while I suspect it is a bit smaller than a standard single bed mattress, it's not such a big deal since I am not sharing it with anyone at the moment. Okay. Let's not go there. Now, being able to stand up straight when I get out of bed without hitting my head on the low ceilng, THAT would have made a difference!

Three weeks, several meetings and (for certain people) too many sleepless nights later, an unprecedented decision was made: to buy 150 mattresses for all Cirque employees. The catch (because there is always one) is that we had to keep our old mattresses in the house since they will have to be reinstalled when we leave. As soon as I found out about the plan, I made sure to let the people in charge know that I did not want the mattress in question because the last thing I needed in my tiny bedroom was to store extra furniture!

M-Day arrived and the 149 mattresses were delivered. They were first piled up into the Cirque common room and then distributed around to the "villas" using smaller trucks and wheelbarrows. Of course, about half of the people didn't want the mattresses and didn't bother to decline the offer in advance like I did so they ended up having to store their share of the mattress pile in their house for the rest of the city. I guess there really is no way to please everybody. Well, there was one but that's another story...

TO BE CONTINUED...