Goodness, there has been a very great deal of washing.
It has been made a bit easier by the very good weather. I put a load of washing into the machine last night before we went to work, and then hung it out in the garden when we came home again at four o’ clock in the morning. This was such an unusually handy thing to be able to do that it made me feel very pleased with the summery world, imagine trying to do it in November.
We put some more washing in the machine before we went to bed, and when we got up this morning the first lot had dried, and we could peg the second lot outside. This is being a wonderful summer.
When I was in the laundrette in Blackpool the other day a lady came rushing in just before five o’ clock, when it was about to close. She apologised for being on the last minute and begged to put her quilt cover into the dryer, because her dryer at home was not working and she didn’t have a spare.
The lady whose laundrette it was was not very pleased about this, because she had finished doing all of her service washes, and wanted to go home. I suggested that it was a warm, breezy day, so perhaps the dryer lady could hang her things outside, where they would probably dry very quickly.
She looked at me with genuine astonishment, and told me that she had never done such a thing in her life, and anyway, she needed it to be dry tonight.
She did not look like a very wealthy lady, quite the reverse, if I am uncomfortably frank, and I felt sad that she had never learned this most efficient exploitation of solar energy.
By the time the third lot of washing had done the second lot had dried, and likewise with the fourth. The last lot is still hanging on the line now, it will be dry by the time I have finished work, I expect. How wonderful to have a twenty-four hour drying facility in my own garden.
Since gardens and washing were the theme of the day, Mark set to clearing the garden up, which has become sad and cluttery, and I made a start on the awful task of ironing.
Because we have sloped off on holiday, this was not just ironing from the holiday, but all our smart clothes from end of term events, and also the whole of the children’s wardrobe and linen collection from last term.
I needed both irons, the huge rotary one and my little flat one. I sprayed everything with lavender water and started to process a quantity of washing that would have daunted even the service washing lady in the laundrette.
In the garden Mark took the remains of the tent down. It was sad to see the back of the tent, and indeed when we took a pot of tea into the garden some time later, we missed it very much, and resolved to reconstruct it tomorrow. It is a lovely tent, but it does occupy all of the washing line, and in any case it had begun to look a bit bedraggled, we need to think hard about what we can do to fix it.
When he had cleared away the tent he turned the compost heap over, because it was starting to smell a bit in the heat, and then started building us a new gate.
We need a gate, because otherwise Roger Poopy escapes whenever an interesting lady dog or a challenging gentleman dog strolls past the end of the garden. Up until today the gap has been blocked off with an old palette, which has been heavy to move and the splintery bits make holes in your T-shirts if you are not very careful. Hence we thought that a new one would be nice.
It is not up yet, but work will be continuing tomorrow. If you look carefully at the photograph you can see the first iron post sticking up, ready for some fencing to be attached.
The garden has become very overgrown whilst we have been away.
Doesn’t it look sad without the tent?
