We woke this morning to the short, inane “tune” of a mobile phone playing distantly but audibly and incessantly.  Its short repeated music phrase was not aggressive but it was insistent and it was amazing how awake one was after ten minutes of that mindless sound.

As no earplugs were to hand the only reasonable response was to get up.  Which we have now done.

Early rising today is no bad thing as a degree of washing and cleaning is necessary as preparation for our next guest.  The washing machine is churning away and the tumble dryer is adding an extra few degrees to an already warm morning.

It is truly amazing how virtuous one feels after emptying the dishwasher; emptying the washing machine; transferring the load to the dryer and then reloading the washing machine.  My cup of tea seems well deserved after so much effort!

It is worth considering how much extra effort would have been needed to achieve what I have completed in a few minutes were I to be magically transported back to Cathays in Cardiff where I remember my earliest days.

The twin-tub and Flatley dryer were later innovations in my house, but I do have early hazy memories of a barrel like washing machine where the swirling mass was periodically poked with a wooden stick almost as if the clothing was part of a giant stew. 

I have very clear memories of the mangle which I sometimes helped to turn.  I particularly remember towels which used to emerge from the rollers like stiff pieces of coloured cardboard – a process which never failed to delight me.  The washing line was stretched across our back yard and I remember that as something which meant that my play was severely restricted.  I did not help with the pegging out of the clothes, as I was too small (!) to reach the line – but I do remember pegging the pegs onto the end bits of each other and attempting to see how many pegs I could keep pegged in a line before they all snapped off into their individual entities.  Now that’s entertainment!

There are many who would say that using an expensive electrical drying machine in a country where strong sunshine is plentiful is a grotesque waste of money and that naturally dried clothes are so much better somehow than those forced into an artificially tumbling drum.  To those I say, so sue me!  I am sure that Our Oscar had something glitteringly witty and interestingly perverse to say about “natural” which I can’t at the moment bring to mind, but I am sure that I agree with whatever it was.

There are ten short days left to this year’s summer holiday.

That sentence in its stark awfulness makes chilling reading – and given the beggared holidays that we have during the rest of the academic year is about as long as the time that we have for the Easter and Christmas holidays respectively.  And we don’t have half terms!

I noticed in one of the parks in the centre of the town that the trees which shaded it had dropped many of their leaves which were sere and brittle underfoot: a harbinger of autumn!  Sigh!

 

Meanwhile the washing and the drying churn on with each machine having new loads to cope with.  And there is still more to go.  There is something very domestic and traditional about doing the washing on a Monday; and later there will be the cleaning. 

I hate it!

It has been a muggy day today and Toni has spent some it reclining trying to get rid of a suspect tummy. 

I sincerely hope that he is fighting fit by the time Emma arrives tomorrow evening!