Letting it all hang out

Day Seven of 'The Daily Post'.

Since we’re on the subject of laundry, let’s talk washing lines. Green Stone Woman pointed out in reply to my last post that your need to iron is reduced if you tumble dry your clothes, and commented “It's different if your clothes dry outside on the line, but nobody in the States does that as far as I know”. Well there is one person who does that… One in 300 million… Yes, you’re reading her blog.

I know it’s all a question of what you’re used to, but it does seem to me ridiculous to put a load of laundry in a tumble dryer when it’s 95 degrees outside. There’s just something in me, that couldn’t, just couldn’t, use a machine to dry laundry, when drying conditions outside are so perfect. Perhaps to appreciate the luxury of it, you have to have lived in Scotland, and done your laundry according to the weather. You probably just wouldn’t understand, unless you’ve had the experience of listening to the weather forecast before putting on your washing machine, feeling smug as you hang your washing out in bright sunshine, and then sprinting out an hour later to rescue it as the rain begins to fall (only to find that it’s still very damp because the sunshine, though bright, didn’t actually have any useful warmth in it). Midwesterners don’t even have an excuse in winter, because they heat their houses so high, that washing would dry perfectly well on a rack. Many homes have a spacious laundry room where the rack could be left out of the way. It’s not as if the damp laundry would need to be draped on radiators round the home, British style.

I understand, from the blogs of Americans in Britain, that line drying leads to crunchy socks and rough towels. Toughen up, people. It was crunchy socks and rough towels that got our men off the beaches at Dunkirk, and made steady the hands of our archers at Agincourt. In return I say to you, at least fresh air doesn’t shrink all your clothes as the drier does, and making use of it will certainly shrink your electricity bill.

Hanging out the washing is one of the few household chores that is pleasurable. Why on earth would I give up that one, and give myself more time for all the other tedious jobs? It wouldn’t be that much more time in any case; hanging out the washing isn’t very time consuming. I’m not going to wax lyrical about how much I enjoy hanging out the washing, because that does sound a little pathetic, but I honestly would miss it, if I converted to tumblianity.

I’m not going to get on an environmental high horse. The thing is, round here, people look on a tumble drier as a standard modern day convenience, and hanging out the washing as something that their mother’s or even grandmother’s generation did. I wonder what my answer would be if someone challenged me over my use of the vacuum cleaner. “Just think of the amount of electricity you use” they could say. “What’s wrong with a broom and a dustpan, and a carpet sweeper? Don’t you care about the environment at all? And why do you have a machine to wash your dishes? All that electricity and all that water too!” My environmental complaints at tumble driers would sound like those, to American ears.

In a lot of neighborhoods, it would be awkward to have a washing line, as plots aren’t fenced, so yard space is very open to public view. I’m lucky in that my neighborhood, being an older one dating back to the 60s, has fenced yards. Nonetheless, I have wondered if there’s a rule somewhere that prohibits washing lines. Fortunately, our back yard isn’t very overlooked, and the trees hide the line, so I think I’m safe. I have an argument prepared, in case I’m challenged. I’m going to say that in Europe, hanging out laundry is a historic craft handed down from generation to generation. I’m very concerned that it is dying out, as spinning and weaving have done, and so I’m taking care to teach the art to my children. I will toss in terms like ‘cultural heritage’ and ‘ancient lore’. If pressed, I could demonstrate the various techniques for hanging, I could show the traditional tools: the clothes pin and the clothes peg. I could quote Shakepearean references such as “The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes, when down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose”, explaining how Shakespeare’s audience would have understood this as an allusion to the politics of Queen Elizabeth the First and her relationship with Spain. I think that would swing my case.

Of course it’s Shakespeare.

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