You really shouldn't blog when you've had a glass of wine and it's late

I've had a glass of wine. It's late.

I've got to wait up because eldest son needs a cricket top tomorrow which was in the laundry basket (actually, it wasn't in the laundry basket, it was draped over the back of the sofa - hadn't even made it to the bedroom floordrobe). So the top is in the washing machine, and I haven't put it on a wash cycle, because even the shortest wash cycle is long. It's on a "rinse only" cycle, with a bit of powder thrown in. Enough to get the garment clean and fresh-smelling, but not too much, because it's not a proper wash cycle, so it won't get rinsed out properly. Do you think that will work? I've never tried it before. I mean, I could have hand-washed the item, which would have taken 5 minutes, but frankly, hand-washing isn't for me any more.

I've really gone off blogging. I've just read the BiB short lists, and I know hardly any of the blogs. It's never been important to me to keep up with the top bloggers for the sake of it, but I spend quite a bit of time moseying around on screen, and it would be nice to recognise a few more names. I mean, who ARE all these zillions of new bloggers? I bet they're really good, but who has time to read them? I'd need a few research assistants if I was to keep up with blogging these days. An intern! That's what I need. A personal blogging intern! You don't have to pay interns, do you? Ideal.

Where do you advertise for a blogging intern?

Blogging, schmogging.

I've written a post about a really important issue. Education. I've got lots to say about it. And I want to say it. But it all came out wrong, and it just sounds like a huge guilt trip about my own children and being a rubbish parent. So what does that mean? That really I feel guilty about being a rubbish parent? Or that I have some things I'd like to say about education that are really sharp and pertinent, and I can insightfully and appositely illustrate them from my own experience. I can't be bothered to think about it.

The best thing about blogging this week was a post called Feckity Arse Biscuits, which - double whammy! - didn't even mention biscuits. Kudos to you, Not from Lapland. I also love the way you've changed from 'Notes from Lapland', to 'Not from Lapland'. Genius. I used to be 'Not wrong, just different'. Maybe I should have changed to 'Not Not wrong, and not very different either'.

I don't like Bloglovin. I don't like the title. Notlovin Bloglovin. I don't like the title, and I don't like the service. Why is Google closing down Google Reader? Not enough earning potential, I expect. Google is trying to take over the world, and no-one has noticed. Stop trying to take over the world, Google. But if you must, at least do the decent thing and pay your taxes in our little corner of it.

I also don't like my Hotpoint washing machine, but I bet Hotpoint pays taxes. I wonder if that cricket top is ready yet. Why did I even wash it? I should just have made him wear it all stinky. He's a teenager. It goes with the territory.

Well, read this post quickly, because I'm probably going to delete it. But comment before you do so, because unless I get at least 6 comments in the next 24 hours, I'm going to give up blogging for ever. Yes, I know that's manipulative, but I don't care.

Did anyone ever discover what IS the point of blogging? It used to feel fun and vaguely worthwhile, in a nebulous sort of a way, and now it just feels... bleurgh. Maybe bleurghing is the new blogging.

You know what they say. Never write and publish a blog post when you've had a glass of wine and it's late. Ha! What about if you're feeling rebellious? What then?

                                                                                                                                   Photo credit: I'm not telling you
.

Enough with the gloom - here's me being positive about motherhood and inventing a new word

The last two posts have been a little gloomy, so I'm changing the mood (though staying on the theme).

This video did the rounds a few years ago, but you might have missed it. I LOVE it. It makes me laugh over and over again - I watch it regularly. But more than that, when I am at a loss for words with my kids, I sing bits of it to them. It's become part of our family language.

I hope you enjoy it.



There's a version on youtube with lyrics, if you found it hard to keep up with her.

I've decided I can't be doing too badly as a mum. I told 15-yo this morning that yesterday, after he'd cleaned up his room, there were 12 pairs of underpants at the top of the laundry basket. I counted them, as I put them in the washing machine (I wouldn't have known he possessed that many).

"That means", I continued, "that before they were in the laundry basket, they were on your bedroom floor. TWELVE pairs of dirty underpants on your bedroom floor."

"No..." he countered, with an endearing grin. "Actually, just eleven. I was wearing one. I put it straight in the laundry basket. Just eleven."

And before I could think of a reposte, he came up with another idea.

"And in fact, I would say it was only eight or nine, because some were on top of others, and not actually touching the floor at all."

This is my point. I might not be very good at training my children to pick up their dirty laundry (can anyone top 12 pairs of underpants?), but I am doing a good job in teaching them that a winsome grin and a clever quick answer will get you out of trouble on many an occasion.

I've just invented a new word. In this house we have floordrobes, and we also have floorndry baskets.
.

A Christmas Miracle

That last post was a little grumpy, wasn't it? Oh go on, you don't have to be nice. It was. But I'm feeling better, enjoying Christmas CDs, eating mince pies (bought loads for an event Husband was organising, and then fewer people turned up than he'd guessed, so yay, spare mince pies for us!) and generally getting in the swing of it. If all else fails, I turn on my IKEA stars and think how lovely they look. Yes, I really am that easy to please.

In fact, I'm so full of the Christmas spirit, that I thought I'd share my own little Christmas miracle story with you. It has all the right ingredients: a family visit, a child, a special day, a mistake that turns out ok but teaches the main character a useful life lesson along the way, a three-legged opossum, and laundry.

Followers of my blog (sad, sad people) will know how much I hate my washer-dryer. I am taking steps to remedy the situation, but for reasons that I can't go into on a public blog (living in a house that belongs to an institution which employs Husband and is therefore not entirely my own to manage), for the time-being, I am stuck with it. I have a personal rule, which is that I never use the dryer function of the washer-dryer combo. Never. Never ever. The dial now has a red nail polish mark on it, to make it easy to see whether it is on or off (applied after I ruined a load of washing). As I say, I never use it. Never. I vowed I wouldn't ever again. Except just sometimes I do have to, for example when my brother and sister-in-law came to stay this week-end and I needed to dry some towels for them (see 1, family visit).

They left on Sunday night, and I turned my thoughts to Monday morning and getting ready for school. 12-yo (see 2, child) said he had to go to school in formal wear, which I thought couldn't be right, but I read the weekly bulletin and spotted a bit I'd missed. Yes, indeed, he did need to be in formal wear because it's the last day of school, with an assembly and a carol service (3, special day). Think kilt, sporran, knee-length socks, sock flashes... (love it, love it, love it, love having my children at a school in Scotland which makes them wear kilts from time to time). Only slight problem, the knee-length socks, of which he has only one pair because he only wears formal dress on rare occasions, were at the bottom of the laundry basket. So into the washing machine they went.

I had forgotten to turn the knob back to the "dryer off" position (4, mistake). When I went into the kitchen at 10.30pm, expecting to find a small pile of clean, wet laundry in the drum (pa-ra-pa-pum-pum) and the machine off, instead I found the machine humming away happily in dryer mode. Although it was on "wool" setting, it was very hot (no, there's nothing wrong with it, I've phoned customer services and asked, it's just that washer-dryers dry very hot). I decided then and there that the red nail polish mark wasn't enough. No. I would have to do more. I would have to selotape the knob, to remind myself never, ever, ever, never, ever to use the dryer (4, mistake that teaches the main character a useful life lesson).

But here's the amazing denouement. The socks were fine. They were almost dry, and they hadn't shrunk at all. They are wool, should be hand-washed, definitely shouldn't be tumble-dried, but when subjected to the foundry-like temperatures of the Hotpoint washer-dryer, had survived unscathed (4, mistake that turns out ok). It was a miracle. I'm naming those socks "Daniel", for they lived through the fiery furnace. (Know that story?) And verily there was much rejoicing, for if the socks had been ruined, indeed the stress therein would have been mighty. For it remaineth to be seen whether a mother can buy a pair of long dress socks for a 12 year old before eight o'clock on a Monday morning.

I lied about the three-legged opossum.

So if "It's a Wonderful Life", or "Miracle on 34th Street" fail to touch your spirit this Christmas, please hold the story of "Iota's Laundry Miracle" in your heart.

If that fails, eat mince pies.

.

"Health risk of drying laundry indoors"

Well, that's all we need, isn't it? Drying laundry indoors puts too much moisture into your air (a litre per half load). That's bad for you.

But how does that compare with the ill health caused by the stress of using a washer-dryer?

We should really all be drying our laundry outside (in Scotland in November?), or finding a glass-walled, south-facing well-ventilated space in our homes. And if you don't have a glass-walled, south-facing, well-ventilated space*... I suppose you sit and wait till someone invents clothes that don't need washing. Personally, I'm not going to worry, because I reckon the moisture content in the air I breathe the minute I set foot outside our house (in Scotland in November) is probably well above what a litre per half load produces inside.

You can see the clip here, but I wouldn't bother. It'll just depress you. Everything makes you ill these days, doesn't it?


*One of the funnniest expat blog posts about laundry that I've read is this one, in which Rachel talks about how much she was looking forward to the conservatory in her new home. She dreamed of sitting there on a winter morning, sipping coffee in the warmth of the sun and watching the birds in the garden. All her English visitors to the new home commented how lovely the conservatory was... but they all exclaimed how great the space would be for drying laundry. It's one of those ultimate cultural divide things.

.

Washing woes

If you read expat blogs, there is one subject that comes up again and again. A subject that evokes the deepest, darkest, most shameful emotions, that stirs home-loving, patriotic passion, that will reduce the most rational, accepting, broad-horizoned traveler to a ranting, bigoted ball of nationalistic hatred. Yes... it's the laundry.

I could write a blog post about my puppy. But as I sit at the computer, I am possessed with a fury that I have seldom known in my life, and I need to run into the therapeutic arms of the blogosphere, to release my pent-up loathing. Loathing, hatred, intense dislike. The thesaurus has left me high and dry. I am lost for words to describe my murderous, raging, venomous, aaaargh...... towards my washer-drier. I don't even know how to spell it. Washer-drier? Washer-dryer? What kind of a thing doesn't even know how to spell itself?

Stick to one thing. Wash if you wash. Dry if you dry. Don't try and multi-task. That's for women. Human beings with a brain, intelligence, and years of experience with laundry. You smug little square white pile of... metal. You think you're so wonderfully clever, with your wheel of different programme numbers, and your buttons of special options.You have that irritating know-all expression on your glass-fronted face, and you rumble away in the corner as if you are the King of Clean Dry Clothing Land. But you know NOTHING! You have the laundry sensitivity of a rampaging bull ox. In season. DON'T try to interrupt. What do you know of animal biology?

I poo-poo your eco-wash option. I hate your small white dials. I spit on your spin speed selector. I refuse to  look at your detergent drawer. I walk by on the other side of the utility room, with my face turned away. I despise your attempts to win me back, with your luring offer of three different levels of dryness. Hanging dry, ironing dry, wardrobe dry. It all sounds so good, but then you go and spoil it all. How can I trust you again? No. Nothing you can do can make me change my mind. I will not relent. You have ruined our relationship. I started out suspicious of your dual nature, your washer-dryer combination, but willing to put my prejudices to one side, to make an effort with you. You have ignored my needs, trampled over my desires. My dreams lie in shrunken, creased heaps. You have put me through the wringer, and hung me out to... never mind. There are no more second chances. I am dumping you.

I never thought I'd say this, but I miss my great big American washing machine. OK, so it didn't get the clothes very clean, but at least it tried. It didn't knot them, shrink them, crumple them, and spew them out at my feet, jeering at my woe and sorrow. It wasn't high-tech or environmentally friendly, but sometimes, I have come to realise, size DOES matter. You and your namby-pamby 5 kilogram weight limit. I don't need your clever clogs technology. I need a machine that will love and accept my huge loads of dirty washing, and then another one that will dry them, gently and carefully, with me at the controls. Machines that will discuss with me what outcomes I want, rather than arrogantly assume they know best. Do you care about 11-yo's Manchester United fleece? You say you do. Your instruction book makes all kinds of extravagant claims. But your behaviour is contrary to those empty promises. You've ruined that fleece. That precious fleece. That fleece, several pairs of school trousers, socks, t-shirts, a dressing gown, and my new M&S panties, with no regard to the cost. Hotpoint, it's over between us.

American expats, I feel your pain. I've crossed over. I'm on your side now. I'm missing my Maytags.

Dirty laundry

Having children is such a rich experience. You watch them grow, mature, become their own people. You give them roots; you give them wings. That is your endeavour. You do your best in the daily muddle, hoping they are learning the skills and wisdom to find their way in life. You look at the World, and your maternal heart clenches a little. Are you preparing them for it adequately? And then, the occasional glorious moment comes when they demonstrate that, yes, they can handle what comes their way. They are more than up to the task. Watch out, World.

This was one such moment.

I was having a round-up of the kids’ clothes – as you do. In 10-yo’s side of the bedroom he shares with 7-yo, there was something of a heap, which I gathered up. I opened the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers, to put some of the heap away. The drawer was full, not of folded clothes in a neat stack, but of a jumble of clothes, much like the one I was holding, scrunched up, and jammed down. I took out the jumble, to find that it was a pile of dirty, not clean, clothes, including several items of smelly underwear.

I looked over at 10-yo, lying on his bed, rapt in his book, oblivious to the laundry concerns of his mother.

“10-yo, these clothes in your chest of drawers. I think they’re dirty. I think they should have gone into the laundry basket.”

With his grinning face alight with an expression that said “I know you’re going to think this is funny and not be cross with me”, he replied,

“Last time I put a whole pile of clothes in the laundry basket at the same time, you got mad at me.”

“So you’re hiding dirty clothes in your clean clothes drawer, and you’re going to sneak them into the laundry basket little by little?”

With a beatific smile,

“Yes! Exactly!”

[Now, just to set the record straight here. He’s referring to the times when I send the kids down to the basement to tidy up. The basements here tend to become the kids’ areas. I don’t know how other people manage their basements, but I hardly go down to ours. I let the kids do what they like down there, and then from time to time, I call a tidy-up day, and I make them put the basement back to rights. By that stage it has become a fearsome task, but as I point out to my little Herculeses, they are lucky I don’t make them tidy up every night. On these occasions, out from the basement emerges a whole pile of sweaters and assorted clothes. And if I don’t intercept quickly enough, that whole pile of sweaters, which are perfectly clean - worn once, discarded in the heat of an air hockey match, and left on the basement floor - are dumped into the laundry basket, with a clean dressing gown or two for good measure, and perhaps a clean blanket. And yes, when that happens, I have been known to have a small rant the next day about washing a big load of sweaters which weren’t dirty when they reached the laundry basket, but having had a damp towel crammed on top of them overnight, now do need washing after all.]

He knows me so well. He knows that I do, indeed, think it is funny to store your dirty underwear and sneak it out bit by bit into the laundry, like the British prisoners of war digging a tunnel, and dropping the loose earth out onto the compound, handful by handful, through holes in their trouser pockets, evading the notice of the German guards. He is right: I’m not going to be cross. He knows I am amused by the intention behind the deed, and am not, when all is said and done, terribly worried about smelly small boy underwear. He knows he got away with it, when the conversation ends in a laugh, not a lecture about cleanliness. As I leave the bedroom, he probably allows himself another grin, before returning to the world of Fablehaven.

He’s a couple of steps ahead of me already. He beats me at chess easily, and even laughs sometimes when I move a piece, saying “Really, Mum? Seriously?” before mercilessly denying me the opportunity to change my mind, and switching that piece with one of his own, removing it off the board. He's just proved his ability to dodge a maternal laundry rant. He can handle a mother. Oh yes, he’s a couple of steps ahead.

But he’s not ahead of me in everything. He doesn’t know how I’ve stored away this conversation. How I, too, am grinning as I go downstairs. How I laugh inside myself at the World, and know that he will make his way through it very well. Yes, in some things he’s a couple of steps ahead of me. I came across the dirty laundry pile today, and a few weeks ago I found a secret stash of Twizzlers. What other secrets lie hidden throughout the house? What other things make him grin in secret triumph as he goes to bed with his Fablehaven friends? But aha, for the mother’s secrets that meanwhile are making me grin in secret triumph too!

.

The laundry challenge

Day Nine of 'The Daily Post'.

“I love you English and Scottish women! I must admit I'm an American who has been spoiled my entire life by a tumble dryer. I'm reconciling to the idea of line-drying when I move to England in a couple of months. I have one very important question for you, though -- and please don't laugh. What do you do when it is winter and raining or snowing? The "drying cabinent" at my boyfriend's house is small and there are only two radiators that I can put socks on to warm-dry them. Do you have secret clothing lines that come out from trap doors in the halls and extend into the kitchen? I'm not being funny here -- I truly would like to whole-heartedly embrace something that is so good for the environment. I could easily dry my clothing if I had a yard in California as the weather is so nice, but what do you do in stretches of rain?”

This was a comment on my post about washing lines. It got me thinking about one aspect of expat life which is a real pain in the ass. It is this. People are used to their own way of life, and find it very hard to explain to a newbie why or how they do things. I found myself wanting to reply to Rachel, the commenter, “It’s hard to explain, but it’s just a question of muddling through. Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it.” And then I thought how really frustrating that would be for her.

It took me right back to my early days here, when things that seemed just a part of life to everyone, were compete mysteries to me. Mysteries that they didn’t seem able to explain. Of course part of the frustration is that you can see their point. There are so many things in life that can’t be explained very easily. Or explaining them is just the beginning. What really needs to happen, is for you to jump in, try a few things a few different ways, and then after finding one that works and repeating it for a while, you are just as much an expert as all the rest of them. A little help to get you started is, actually, a big help, but there are no short cuts to experience.

Incidentally, my husband wrote a whole PhD thesis on this very subject. What a waste of those years, when all along he had a wife who could sum it up in a paragraph! I should just have discovered blogging a few years earlier, and we’d have saved ourselves a lot of time and money - though the university might not have awarded him a doctorate and the right to wear a fancy hat on the basis of one paragraph in a blog post. Universities are picky like that.

But back to Rachel. In my early days, I often did pose questions such as hers to the blogging community, because (a) it was a lot quicker and easier than asking 10 local people, and I didn’t even know 10 local people at that point, but it meant I got 10 answers, (b) I got fed up with asking basic questions to people face to face - it didn’t make for great conversation, and (c) I quickly came to realize what a fabulous bunch is out there in the blogosphere, and what top quality answers they gave.

So, on Rachel’s behalf, tell me. How on earth DO we manage to get washing dry, in the British climate, with no tumble dryer? I mean, talk about setting a difficult challenge. Rachel’s boyfriend is already a huge step ahead of me (and I thought I was a pretty impressive laundry operator), because I don’t even know what a ‘drying cabinet’ is. Unless it’s what a Prime Minister appoints if he/she wants to counteract the effects of a government of Tory wets.

Let me start us all off. Rachel, I did have a tumble dryer in Scotland, for emergencies, but I hardly ever used it because there’s this marvellous thing called a drying rack. It’s worth taking time and choosing a good one. By good one, I mean one that will make the maximum use of the space you have available. A lot of people have the rack in the kitchen, where it is a permanent annoyance and gets in the way of whatever you are doing. Other people put it in the bath, where it stands for days on end with semi-dry clothes, because bathrooms are cold and draughty in the UK, and it’s only eternal optimism (see ‘Dunkirk spirit’ in my previous laundry post) that keeps us in the belief that the clothes will actually dry in there. Radiators are a good bet, even if your boyfriend only has two small ones in his small house. As he has perhaps already told you, size isn’t everything.

We Brits are prepared to spend more time and effort on laundry than our US counterparts, so that we are quite happy to get up from the sofa at intervals throughout the evening, even though this means interrupting our viewing of splendid BBC programmes since there are no commercial breaks (which, come to think of it, would actually be useful for laundry purposes), and remove a few dry socks to make space for the next lot of them. We are a bit laundry obsessed, truth be told, so that first thing in the morning, when we get out of bed, our topmost priority isn’t to get the coffee maker on, but to remove the dry socks from the radiators and put out the next batch of damp ones.

As for those secret lines coming out from trap doors, no, we don’t have those but it’s a magnificent idea, which you should develop, take to the Dragons’ Den (UK equivalent of the Sharks’ Tank), and use to make a fortune. Then you and your boyfriend will be able to buy a big house and install a huge tumble dryer in it.

Come on, fabulous British laundry experts. What other tips and advice do you have for Rachel?

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.

.