Socks

We are having a terrible domestic crisis which is entirely due to my irresponsible housewifeliness.

I came to put the washing away this morning and was discomfited to discover that there were no fewer than six odd socks, one of which was a completely alien sock that I had never seen before in my life.

To say we were horrified was an understatement. I am inclined to be a bit on the personality disorder spectrum when it comes to organised washing. Mark empties all the pockets, because he is fed up of having his wallet washed, and I turn things the right way out and sort everything out carefully and when it is all done I peg it in the same order on the washing line, with sheets or jeans in the middle where they will get the most sun, then T-shirts and sundries like tea towels on either side, and the socks at the far end hung by their toes in tidy matching pairs.

Mark said that it was a clear sign that I am losing my marbles. I thought that it might be because the children had been conscripted into forced labour a few days ago, and we both wondered if it might be the new second-hand dog borrowing them lovingly and squirrelling them away somewhere dark and putrid.

This would be perfectly possible because although the washing basket is on the landing between the bathroom and our bedroom, tactically placed in virtually the exact place we generally undress, we never actually seem to bother lifting the lid up and putting things inside it.

It might work rather better with no lid but an enormous upturned funnel, to catch things which are just hastily slung in its general direction. In reality, usually it is not so much a repository for clothes but a nice wicker basket with a pile of smelly jeans and T-shirts heaped up next to it. The dogs sleep on these if we leave them there, burrowing their noses in things and snoring and dribbling, and therefore it is perfectly possible that some socks have been secretly appropriated for the lonely moments when the washing machine has been put on and we have gone to work.

We have had a hunt for them but to no avail. I have searched despairingly round everywhere I can think of, and regretfully reached the conclusion that some more housework is called for. We did a lot of spring cleaning last week, but the enthusiasm faded before I got as far as ironing, and so now what I need is a good play on the radio, preferably one lasting about two and a half hours, a glass of wine and nothing else to do.

This is a wildly improbable state of affairs, especially the last part. if I could take ironing down to the taxi rank and get on with it in between customers the problem would be solved, but I think that problem might be beyond even Mark’s ingenuity to fix.

In the end this morning of course we were obliged to leave the mystery hanging anxiously in the air. We had leaped out of bed at eleven so Mark could helpfully take Lucy to work, but then when he came back we got back in bed and sat there for a while drinking coffee and being sociable with the dogs.

When we finally emerged there wasn’t anything like time to do all the things that we would have very much have liked to do, like ironing and shifting stones on the allotment and bolting fittings on to Mark’s newly-invented hydrogen engine and finishing the beautiful white skirt I have got in cut out pieces next to the sewing machine and welding the floor back in to the camper and finishing off my mosaic table stand.

Instead of doing these things we emptied the dogs in the Library gardens and made up bags of nuts and olives and breadsticks because we have gone off sandwiches, and went to work, where we sat on the taxi rank and I wrote to you, and Mark got his computer out and hunted on eBay for fittings for his hydrogen engine.

We are going to finish early tonight, we think, because everybody will have gone home by about ten o’ clock.

Maybe we will get some time after that.