There are lots of Facebook groups based around line-drying washing, both indoors and out. Some of the comments are very strange and I wonder why it seems so extreme and 'old-fashioned' to some people, to me it's just the way it's always been done. Why pay for electricity to dry your clothes, bedding and towels, stripping fibres from them in every drying session ... I have no idea, but it's not for me, never has been and never will be.
I grew up with the sort of scene in the top photo, lines strung across the kitchen, which was also our living room. I was used to watching Blue Peter, or Watch with Mother sat on the floor to one side of a sheet so that I could see the television.
When I married it was a similar scenario, although I didn't have a washing machine and everything started off on an airer stood on the sides of the bath until the things had stopped dripping. Oh, how I envied my Mum the mangle she had had for years that took all the excess water out of the clothes and left them just non-drippy enough to be able to be strung across the kitchen straight away.
I got my first little table top washing machine when my second son was a few months old, when hand washing nappies and school uniforms as well as all the bedding etc for four people while living in a small flat proved too much. Washing the bedding and larger towels still had to be done in the bath but virtually everything else could be washed, rinsed and then gently spun before being hung out on a line that was outside of the bathroom window of our third floor flat.
Now my life seems so easy in comparison, and when I got my first automatic washing machine when we moved from the flat to our council house I said thanks at every load it did for me ... I still do.
It's that time of year now, when I can just about leave the washing to be done until the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, before loading the machine and letting it do all the work. I love pegging things out, I don't like bringing them in quite as much, I don't know why unpegging and folding annoys me so much but it does.
Yes, I'm odd but at least I know it. 😄
I left the small amount of washing on the line while we went out yesterday, the skies were a perfect shade of blue, there was a lovely, if slightly chilly breeze and it was nearly dry as we left. But I went out without bringing it in. Fatal mistake!!
It obviously rained while we were away and when I got back it was hanging slightly damp but back in the sunshine, so I left it. Half an hour later the heavens opened again so I dashed out and brought it in, draping it all on the airer to finish it's second drying. Now the washing is on the airer in the bedroom and the sun is shining outside.
Oh the perils of line drying.
Nothing's perfect, but then nothing has to be. 😃
Sue xx
There isn't much more satisfying to me than seeing a line of laundry blowing in the breeze. Xx
ReplyDeleteIt is satisfying isn't it. I used to be the most satisfied seeing a line of a dozen terry nappies blowing in the sunshine. :-)
DeleteIn my first flat I had a tiny top loading machine but it didn't drain & had to be emptied by hand inyo the kutcgen sink. I did the wash, then took it all to the bathroom and rinsed in the bath, then carried it to the spindryer outside the bedroom to spin, then pegged it to an airer on the balcony (we couldn't use the drying yard 2 flights down, because people kept nicking the washing) Sometimes I'd have 3 washloads on the go at once. I was running from one room to another like a demented squirrel, trying to manage all the laundry.
ReplyDeleteYes my little table top machine had to be emptied by a gravity drain and a pipe that I let dangle into the bath. My husband made me a little sort of box on wheels for it, so that it sat slightly above the height of the bath in the space where I had to stand next to the bath to reach out of the window to hang the washing on the line.
DeleteI now have visions of you as a 'demented squirrel' ... looking slightly like Mrs Tiggywinkle but less prickly!! :-)
In the flat where we live, there is no outside drying area, and we are not allowed to dry washing indoors. The kitchen is far too small to have a tumble dryer. The laundrette is two bus rides away. I'm lucky, I have a dehumidifier so I ignore the rules and dry my washing overnight with the dehumidifier running for a couple of hours.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good idea using a dehumidifier, a lot of people seem to be doing that these days. They must be cheaper to run than a tumble dryer for sure.
DeleteWhen I was little I used to hate the way the washing tickled the top of my head when it was strung across the kitchen and now I still couldn't cope with a head massage!
ReplyDeleteHaha, I know what you mean. :-)
DeleteI remember we were given a twin tub as a wedding gift and I felt the luckiest girl in the world. When the babes came along, I could boil the nappies and took great pride in their whiteness on the line. I smile now but it gave me pleasure.
ReplyDeleteNow I dry on the line when I can and have a drying rack to put up when the weather doesn't play ball. Tumble drying is just so expensive! xx
There's something VERY satisfying about a line of lovely white terry nappies. :-)
DeleteWe peg out when its fine, thats the one thing my husband was so pleased about buying here, there was a long washing line!
ReplyDeleteI love a lovely long straight washing line, no whirly-gig drying contraptions for me. :-)
DeleteI'm with you! I love hanging things out but hate bringing them in. Like you I'm not sure why. Perhaps less Zen?!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely less zen ... probably to do with all the folding and having to put things away.
DeleteWe bought a dryer when the children were small. I only just it when I had too. But drying outside is my favorite choice. The smell... but also the sun makes white even wither. Two years ago I sold my old dryer. We didn't use it anymore. Do I miss it? Not really. Just on the days it seems nothing will dry. But no time passes by I get more and more used to it.
ReplyDeleteI love bringing the dry wash in. Folding and iaring I dont made. I just love all the need piles of need laundry.
There's something very satisfying about a pile of washed and ready to put away things for sure. A day well spent and a chore out of the way ... until next time. :-)
DeleteThe towels are in the machine and will go out shortly as it’s cold but sunny here today. Catriona
ReplyDeleteIt's a good feeling to get all the towels out on the line and blown dry isn't it, I just make sure that I bring them in before they bake crispy on a hot Summer's day. :-)
DeleteYou can't beat the smell of freshly line dried washing but I'm also with you on loving the pegging out but hating the fetching in! I don't enjoy ironing either but feel the need for neatly ironed clothes and bedlinen. The sun was shining beautifully when I pegged the washing out yesterday morning but it went very grey by 1pm and, as we were going out, I fetched it in and placed it on the airer in front of the patio doors. I'm glad I did because it drizzled later in the day.
ReplyDeleteI haven't ironed anything for years now, Alan ironed his own shirts for work but that's the only time his iron is in use. I don't own one at all now. It sounds like you were more sensible than me with bringing the washing in when it should have been brought in. :-)
DeleteWhat memories that you have brought back. Like you we never had a washing machine but I did have a spin dryer which my mum bought after 5 years of being wed, when the children were born. All the washing was done in the bath. I have no need for a tumble dryer as my washing is dried outside or on the maiden.
ReplyDeleteA spin dryer is a real godsend when you are line drying isn't it, it saves the dripping stage of the drying on the line. I used to love the word maiden and that's what we grew up calling the thing that is now known as an airer. I loved my old tri-fold one.
DeleteI love the smell of outside dried washing, especially if it has been a cold but sunny day. I have been lucky because my husband has always worked shifts so I could leave washing out and he could fetch it in if need be. More recently my son has worked from home so he would hang out and/or fetch in if necessary. I now have a spare bedroom (eldest moved out) so I have a finishing off drying rack in there.
ReplyDeleteJane (a regular reader)
I think if I had a spare room I would have a clothes line zigzagged across it for non-outside drying days. :-)
DeleteYour post reminded me of my childhood in England. My Mother had a "copper" to wash her clothes in. Yes, I am as old as dirt. Ha Ha. When washed they were hung out, brought in, ironed and some were put in the airing cupboard in my bedroom. I also have a hand written note from my great Aunt, which tells of what she had to do as a child when it was laundry day, it was an all day event, with the water being used to clean the wash house floor when all finished. Mending, ironing etc. was done the remaining days of the week. We are spoiled in this day and age with all the new appliances available to us.
ReplyDeleteI read your posts every day, first time commenting.
We had a 'washhouse' on my childhood home that my Dad converted into his shed, in the corner of it was the space where a copper would have stood, with room for a fire to be lit underneath. But my Mum and Nana were modern ladies and shared an huge square washing machine that stood next to the bath upstairs in the house, it had a mangle that swung around over the bath. My job was to fish the things out of the cold water in the bath where they were being rinsed and pass them through the mangle again. Monday was always washing day when I was growing up, very traditional.
DeleteWelcome to the comments section. :-)
An American blogger friend came to stay with us a few years ago and was fascinated by how we pegged the washing on the line in the garden - and how scratchy our towels were! Nothing beats the crispness and clean smell of sun-dried laundry.
ReplyDeleteI loathe fabric conditioner, I'm sure that why my clothes, bedding and towels last forever! xxx
Yes, our American relatives were shocked by my washing out on the line when they came to visit, and the fact that we took our dogs for a walk twice a day. When my Mum and Dad went over to stay with them they were really worried when Mum took their two little dogs for a walk around the block, they said it just wasn't really done, but that they would explain it away as their 'eccentric British relative insisting'. :-)
DeleteI washed everything on the bath when we were first married. My back got so achy leaning over the tub that after I scrubbed the collars and cuffs and shoulders! of the shirts (my husband worked in a tyre depot, and they carried the tyres on their shoulder) I used to trample the washing like someone treading grapes! Then it had to be rinsed and dripped over the bath or hung in the back yard. This was late 1970s.
ReplyDeleteSue you definitely are not sad, I check the weather report all year round and out goes the washing onto the lines around the garden, this winter has seen just two lots of bed linen dried indoors in front of the log burner. My family think me strange that I actually enjoy doing the laundry but it is soooo therapeutic. Jan in Castle Gresley
ReplyDelete