Danskcolin: Friday March 15th 2024

When it becomes unattractive or difficult to wash and dry clothes, life becomes almost impossible, doesn't it. You're forced to keep buying new clothes, or else to wear something unsuitable, Lois and I have found. Call us lazy layabouts if you like haha!

We've thought about buying one, or maybe two, of the new massive 200-bushel (7 cubic meter) laundry baskets recently unveiled by Sterilite, which is still an option, so that we can store dirty clothes more or less indefinitely.

However, more often than not, we just wear something old from the back of our wardrobe, like this poor local guy from North Piddle, just outside Worcester.

Poor guy !!!!

And it can even happen to women, too. And you see some rather poignant cases of that around town too sometimes, which is a bit of a shame isn't it - still, that's life haha !!!!!

anonymous woman in t-shirt with out-of-date message,

pictured recently in the lovely Worcestershire village of Bell End

Old t-shirts, old jeans, old shirts, old skirts, old underwear that we "no longer truly believe in" or just pay lip-service to - is that what the future holds for Lois and me?

I wonder....!

Or should we just "throw money" at the problem, and order that massive 200-bushel Sterilite laundry basket anyway - they've got them on special offer at Argos at the moment, incidentally! - and just leave it at that? What do you think?

Well, as it happens, Lois and I are taking neither of these two options - call us stuffy traditionalists if you like! We recently took delivery of a retractable washing-line from Vileda, and this morning we decide to "give it an airing" - no pun intended!!!

It's a good chance this morning, because today's rain is predicted to hold off till about 3 or 4 pm, which is what counts as a "good weather day" in these parts!!!!!

awwwww - look at Lois in action here in our tiny back garden !!!!

our latest batch of towels, tea-towels and cloths,

pictured here as storm-clouds gather over Malvern

Incidentally doesn't Lois look delightful, so "neat and nimble-oh" when she's hanging out clothes?

Do you know the old folksong "Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron" ?

According to Wikipedia, " "Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron" is an English folk song about a man admiring the girl he loves as she goes through daily stages of washing and ironing clothes. It is classified as Roud number 869.

"The earliest date in the Vaughan Williams catalogue is 1904, as collected in Somerset [England], and arranged by Cecil Sharp. A later entry for 1908 gives the source as Jane Gulliford from Somerset. The Fresno State University [California] gives a slightly different title, "Driving Away at the Smoothing Iron", with a date of 1909."

14:00 We retire to bed for "nap-time" with our tea-towels etc still flapping on the washing-line, but we've got to keep half an eye on the bedroom window, in case it starts raining earlier than the forecast 4pm.

Lois is feeling spectacularly relaxed in bed this afternoon, knowing that our new washing-line is in action out the back.

I'm just a little bit out of step with her. I do my best but I can't help feeling slightly "on tenterhooks", or maybe on "clothes-pegs", because, although Lois doesn't know it, as an extra surprise, I've ordered her a long pole, to use as a "washing-line prop", to stop e.g. our newly-laundered soiled bedsheets from sagging, and dragging through the Malvern mud that is our lawn in its current state.

Argos say the pole's coming today - but it hasn't come yet. So I'm keeping half an ear open in case there's an annoying "door bell moment" accompanying and heralding the appearance of my surprise extendible pole.

I've got all eventualities covered, by the way: my so-called dressing gown is hanging over a bedside chair "just in case".

But what a madness modern life is !!!!

Luckily the Argos guy doesn't come till about 4:30 pm, when Lois is dressed and in the bathroom, so I get the chance to take the delivery from the guy and thank him myself, which is nice!

I take delivery of the extendible "washing line prop"

from the guy in the white Argos van (seen in background)

captured on camera: the moment when a delighted Lois

sees my surprise extendible pole for the first time

I've discovered that nothing "gets Lois's motor running" so much as a nice practical household gift, like the 4 different-coloured kitchen chopping-boards I got her for Mother's Day.

flashback to Mother's Day - a delighted Lois unwraps

the set of 4 kitchen chopping boards, my present to her

Poor Lois !!!!!

[That's more than enough about washing-lines and chopping-boards, thank you very much! - Ed]

17:00 Most weekends, our daughter Sarah, who lives in nearby Alcester with husband Francis, brings their 10-year-old twins Lily and Jessica, to stay with us for a couple of nights. The family returned to the UK in May last year, after spending 7 years in and around Perth, Australia.

This weekend Sarah and the twins are not coming to us, however - Jessica's got a bad cough and cold - but this morning we visited the Warner's Supermarket at Upton-on-Severn, and bought the twins two little chicks and a couple of chocolate bunnies for Easter, as well as fulfilling our own grocery needs.

we buy the twins 2 little chicks

and a couple of chocolate bunnies for Easter

- awwwwwwwww!!!

17:00 And before tea, we get the chance to tidy up the twins' stuffed toys, "artistic creations" etc from last weekend, and also the chance to see, and to wonder at, even more evidence of the girls' seemingly inexhaustible "whimsy".

Mostly the two girls get along very well with each other. For some of their time in Australia, the family were living in tents or in remote houses "out bush", "way out in the sticks" or "out in the boonies", and being home-schooled by dad Francis, while Sarah travelled in daily to her accountancy job in Perth. So the twins had to make the best use of their own company a lot of the time.

flashback to February 2023: the twins with dad Francis

at a camp-site near Perth Airport, Australia,

preparing to move back to the UK

Deprived of young company for some of their time down under, the twins' vast collection of stuffed toys became their "extra little friends", and they've all been given names, and also "birthdays", which are all marked on the twins' own little calendar, which is cute.

The twins have also figured out ways of resolving the inevitable occasional "sibling disputes" amicably, but Lois and I sometimes catch British-style, somewhat understated, evidence of disagreements, often to be seen only on the little signs that one twin has made out of an old bit of cardboard: signs subsequently, and subtly, later "corrected" by the other twin.