See the mops in the corner of the porch in the second picture? We had to borrow mops from the neighbors, because water blew in under and on the sides of the three doors shown in the pictures. Next time around those will need to be boarded up, because the doors are not a tight fit in the frames.
That is a pathetic looking load of laundry - embarrassing, really. Why am I publishing this?
Now I feel guilty, laughing at your misfortune. I must rush off to church and confession(general).
ReplyDeleteGets me kind-of nostalgic. We're both of us old enough, aren't we, that we can remember when this sort of thing was a regular, weekly occurrence? Mind you, I was never an active participant in old-style, back-breaking laundry, so nostalgia brings no unpleasant memories.
ReplyDeleteOr did Southern Louisiana, following French practice, go in for communal, riverside laundry, rubbing the washing against stones? Singing communally in quaint, barely-intelligible French as you smashed your underwear against the rocks?
Brian, no guilt, please. We must keep hold of our sense of humor.
ReplyDeleteLapin, remember that I was a city girl. We had the old tub "automatic" washer with the wringer on top and clotheslines. Don't know what the country folks did. I'd still like to have a clothesline, but the rules of the neighborhood forbid them. Isn't that silly? I'm tempted to put one up in the backyard anyway.
You Americans, with your advanced civilization. No memory of the kind of lives that people lived in the North of England in my childhood - eight families living in one cardboard box; kids walking 30 miles to school, barefoot through the snow, every day. I could go on for hours....
ReplyDeleteLapin, please stop. I can't see through my tears of compassion.
ReplyDeleteDuring one, several-months-long stretch of my childhood, we had a broken dryer. It was winter, and we had an old-fashioned plate rail in our dining room, so we just hung the laundry from it. Your laundry looks positively upper class in comparison.
ReplyDelete:-)
We had an accordion-fold wooden rack with three rows of dowels, which Mama put over the floor furnace in inclement weather.
ReplyDeleteWe lived far enough South the only heat for the house was a natural gas fired heater set in the floor of a central hallway with no air ducts to distribute the heat, much less insulation in the walls or floors. We would dress over it in winter, holding our jeans over the heat until they were warm enough to wear.
Ruth, that's a clever use for a plate rail. Whose idea was that? Your mom's, I'll bet.
ReplyDeleteJohnieb, the floor furnace was a great advance from the hazardous gas-fired space heaters that we used. We slept in the cold with lots of blankets, because it was not safe to leave them on at night.
My mother warmed our undies in front of the heater for us before we dressed, huddled close to the warmth of the heater.
Grandmere --there are many famous paintings --particularly from the Connecticut river valley, which get all romantic over laundry on the porch.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you are merely going to institute a new old fad.
I went looking for one of the square metal clotheslines that popped up like a patio umbrella that held about thirty square feet of line in a very little space --can't find them anywhere.
I think you should hang laundry in your yard... I'll bet your neighbors are counting on you doing it first!
Margaret, I have searched and searched for that type of clothesline, to no avail. If you ever find one, let me know. I thought that would be more discreet in my neighborhood which forbids clotheslines. I could take it down and hide it in a hurry. I'd love to hang out my sheets and some of my clothing.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, we had clothes lines in the yard, but given the wetness of the Lancashire climate, the drying often had to be done indoors, using heat from the fire. This was done either using a clothes horse, a folding wooden frame, over which the clothes were draped:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gutenberg.org/files/15137/15137-h/images/28.jpg
or using a contraption that consisted of wooden laths, secured at either end by cast iron rack ends, suspended from the ceiling and raised and lowered by ropes and pulleys:
http://i7.ebayimg.com/05/i/000/fb/d2/04ec_1.JPG
These were more efficient than their description might suggest. They dried a relatively large number of clothes, in a comparatively small area and stored them at ceiling height, where they were out of the way and where the air was warmer.
End of tonight's lesson in Victorian living.
Because it is part and parcel of life. Actually, it's a pretty modest-looking collection of things. You don't have outrageous smalls hanging out for all the world to see.
ReplyDeleteLapin, I love the pics. At a glance, the first picture suggested an instrument of torture.
ReplyDeleteCaminante, the outrageous smalls were hanging out there, too, on another day, on the front porch, blowing in the breeze. I didn't take a picture.
Actually, I should amend my previous comment. My undergarments are boring and not at all outrageous, except for the fact that they were hanging on the front porch.
ReplyDeleteMimi, we sisters of the Order of St Laundra are horrified to learn of your neighborhood's ban on outdoor clotheslines. What is this world coming to???
ReplyDeleteWe also find no cause for embarrassment in these pictures. The speak to us of courage and ingenuity in attempting to get back to normal existence after a great blow.
Laundry hanging out to dry (and especially in such trying circumstances) strikes us as Real (to borrow a term frequently used by our friend Leonardo Ricardo). We are in favor of Real, and we believe Our Lord is also on the side of Real.
I finally got a clothes dryer after 38 years of marriage and I love it to pieces, but I also love to hang out the wash (especially the sheets).
We are keeping you in our communal prayers as you clean up and get back to normal.
Is this the sort of thing you're looking for, Mimi?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Whitney-3000-30-Line-Parallel-Style-Aluminum/dp/B00124TUUE/ref=pd_cp_hg_1?pf_rd_p=413863601&pf_rd_s=center-41&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B0009WG6O8&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0HPXB12EYMCDYJYVCCN3
Sister Mary Clara, that rule in our neighborhood covenant has annoyed me for 25 years, and I'm about to break it, for the sake of the sheets, especially.
ReplyDeleteLong ago, when I was still an obedient RC, I had three babies in a row. Talk about actions and consequences! In rainy Louisiana, I really needed a dryer, or we would have had diapers flapping all over the house. We didn't use disposables then, unless we were traveling.
Lapin, I received a couple of emails from Margaret with info on the umbrella-type clothes lines. What with your link, I believe that I have enough options to move ahead.
ReplyDeleteDidn't I teach you how to do hyper-links?