We’re lucky enough to have our own washing machine. It wasn’t always like that. We used to spend about five hours each week washing by hand and we still wore everything three days in a row to reduce the workload. Even most of those who have machines have the split washer / spinner type that requires manual intervention, but we managed to get hold of a European model and are loving it.
But the troubles aren’t over. The dog in our last house used to take the washing line as his personal toy box and we still have clothes with chew marks from not taking things down before he was let off the leash at night. That worry is gone in our current flat and we can now leave our washing out all night on the balcony. Well, we could if it weren’t for our pesky neighbours and their fire.
Whenever there’s a puja in the block behind us – and that happens a lot in a building with 8 flats – they light a fire in a designated fireplace that just happens to be below our balcony. That in itself wouldn’t be such a problem, but to really cleanse the house (strangely, the fire is in the corner of their property furthest from the building) the fire must be smoky. To ensure this, they put on plenty of fresh pine with all the green needles.
I’ve just come in from pulling all our washing down. Having seen the fire, I managed to get everything in before they added the green stuff sitting beside it. No one in that building or anyone else in ours has washing out. It’s probably some religious day and if we asked someone, they’d say ‘Oh, didn’t you know?’ I guess smoky clothes isn’t a big price to pay for the chance to live somewhere completely different.