Washing fine

Sunday afternoon and I’m watching the washing blowing on the line. It’s a strange anomaly for me, this liking of washing, standing like a rocky outcrop in among the desert of my detestation of domestic tasks. I observe other people’s washing lines as some wear white gloves and run their fingers along the top of door frames to catch the dust the duster missed in its slack application to its duties. No challenge to be found there in my house; the dust is quite visible and requires no subterfuge or tip toed teetering.

Putting up a washing line yesterday marked too another step towards the completion of my overhaul of the back garden. In the nearly two years since we moved here I’ve had to make do with drying the clothes and sheets on the sturdy wall-mounted handrail left behind as a marker of the house’s previous incarnation as home to my great Uncle Roy. Installed by the council, its purpose was to steady his step as he made his way to or from the front door. That he hadn’t placed a foot outside in a decade and a half was beside the point. The handrail’s position just above a radiator was a fortuitous happenstance, for I might not have otherwise spotted its garment drying potential.

But why the fascination with washing lines? I don’t know, although I do know that a sensibly modern rotary device full of stiff wires with blue nylon rope strung between the spokes like a skeletal upturned umbrella was not what I wanted. I’d had one of these before, space saving and neatly placed by the back door after we moved into the barn. But the hanging of my washing in a triangular circle, whilst satisfactory for drying, did not meet my observational expectations. And great expectations they are indeed, of sheets billowing yards above the ground as a ship at full sail, but with socks and pants and pillow cases run up the main brace rather than the blue ensign.

I worked with a man once who occupied his whole days at the Centre with drawing pictures of washing up. His clinical depression had locked him away from taking part in most conversation, but he was happy to sit and smile shyly beneath his fringe, scratching plates and cups and spoons onto paper as others around him chatted and played cards. I don’t draw the washing on the line and nor am I depressed, but I have been known to comment in admiring tones at a particularly well-strung line of shirts or sheets.

So what constitutes a good line of washing in my view?

Items hung taughtly with no sag at the top between pegs. Batches of clothes in colour co-ordinated tones as one might sort the wash – blues with blues, pinks with reds, blacks with browns with greens. A neat start with hanging progression from one end to the other; I always choose to start at the far end and work back to the house, but am open to the opposite habit among other aficionados. Lofty line height is an admirable trait, as is the use of wooden pegs. I like natural tones and the artificial jollity of the plastic variety somewhat mars the view with its scattering of colour to disrupt the flow of the spectrum.

And of course, most importantly (as I don’t iron anything) the line-dried garment bears no crease. Simply un-peg, fold carefully into the washing basket and place in a drawer. Ready to wear and with an inbuilt dose of sunshine and good fresh air to make your skin smile even on the cloudiest day.