The other day, hanging some clothes out on the balcony, I mused to myself about the clothes peg: what a simple, yet effective object it is, which in essence hasn't changed for hundreds of years (although life was clearly improved by the invention of the spring-loaded version by David M. Smith of Vermont in 1853). In a flash, the simple act of pegging clothes out to dry connected me with centuries of human beings, and in my own memory, with my younger self, hanging clothes out on a line strung between trees, most now tragically cut down, next to the cottage where I grew up (hoping against hope they'd be dry in time to wear); with a woman glimpsed from a Berlin-bound train in East Germany in 1986, who paused to look up from her wet sheets as we flashed by her green hillside; with, for some reason, and fancifully, pre-Revolution French washerwomen hanging Madame's couture gowns in Paris apartments and Edinburgh housewives draping bloomers over the narrow streets of the Canongate; and finally, and according to Wikipedia, "the little person one drags around in Google Maps" who is called "pegman" because he is shaped like a clothespeg.
There's something so wonderful about freshly-washed, fresh-air-dried clothes: begone the dull, environmentally-unfriendly convenience of the clothes-dryer! Give me a clothes peg and a washing line any day of the week.
Popular Posts
-
I have more than one good reason to loathe the second item in the series, but I confess that what seals their fate from my unbalanced perspe... -
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned ...
-
Tom Jefferson, a British epidemiologist working for the Cochrane Collaboration , says in an interview with Der Spiegel that whilst swine f...
-
When I was a kid I used to share a room with my younger brother (happy birthday, Robin). I had the top bunk on the bunkbed, which was agains...
-
I was off ill from work yesterday, and miserable and listless in my flat. I ventured out once, to do some software training for clients whic...
-
Male silkworm moth, picture by Kevin Wanner , an entomologist at the University of Illinois. China accounts for 70% of global silk producti... -
1. What can I do, I have dreamed of you so much What can I do, lost as I am in the sky What can I do, now that all the doors and win...
-
Thank God the US Treasury, in charge of resolving the financial meltdown, are using appropriate reference to the extent of the problem, cold...
-
Aside from a period of around 8 years' duration when I dyed my hair black (although I emphatically wasn't a goth, I favoured pale sk... -
Courage was mine, and I had mystery Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery From Wilfred Owen, Strange Meeting (1918) I thought of...
About Me
- LottieP
- © 2005-2015 LottieP. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. (All comments © the individual authors.)
Awards
Subscribe To
Posts
Comments
Sitemeter
5 comments:
Love this post. Freshly dried sheets are up there with the smell of fresh coffee. It is mostly raining here so laundry ends up draped on radiators. I would love a giant clothes horse that took it all! I recall in the USA - where dryers reign supreme - they had not heard of clothes horses and I could not buy one for love nor money.
Yes! My fantasy perfume house has "freshly dried sheets" alongside "woodshed" and "road after rain"...
Ah, a girl after me own heart......It is a singular pleasure, hanging out clothes on a sunny, blowy day. Putting them on the pulley in the kitchen (do they have pulleys in the USA?) just isn't the same. I have never used a tumble drier.
Dear Charlotte,
Yes, I love it too, & regret the demise of our Carousel,& now use the pulley. Its main advantage is its reliability above the Raeburn that's continaully lit!
Incidently I was very sad to see Robin's Chestnut tree was felled last week ie with his swing attached.
I'm enjoying your 'spy'blogs. Do you ever have camera shy victims?
Anonymous (is that you, Marg?), as nmj suggests, I think they just have tumble dryers.
Chris - I do get knocked back on occasion; I tend to zero in on people who are reserved because I find them more interesting, so it's inevitable that some of them refuse.
Post a Comment