Washday flues.

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no. 83:- What is this object? What is special about it athletically and commercially?

Monday morning, freezing cold, I get back from my trudge, wanting a quick shower and my breakfast AND WHAT DO I GET? Would I just hang the washing out, it won’t take a minute. Normally, I would not be asked to hang out the washing on the washing line because I allegedly, cannot do it correctly. How can you hang out towels on a washing line incorrectly? That does take some doing!! Apparently I can do it wrong so in normal circumstances I am not allowed to hang the washing out on the washing line. Sweating from my trudge, sweat trickling down my face, wet through with sweat, the strong possibility of catching man flu from catching a chill in the freezing cold hanging out washing; but I have to hang out the washing. Monday is Monday is wash day. Monday is washday now, has always been so and will be so forever more. If you took careful note of my last message to you Blog, you will have immediately recognised the inductive reasoning therein. Well done. The sun rises in the East and sets in the West, has always done so and will do so forever more. If you took careful note of my last message to you Blog, you will have immediately recognised the inductive reasoning therein. Now because I was trusted with this important task, I have to confess to you that I do enjoy the satisfaction it gives. Red items are pegged with red pegs, white items with white pegs, green coloured clothing with green pegs and so on and so forth. It is a little indulgence I allow myself. The finished line of clothes gives a deep feeling of a job well done with all the colour coordination. But today was just too much. It may have been the cooling effect of the sweat on my tired body from my trudge or it may have been the first signs of the onset of man flu from not having a warm shower after my trudge, but when I saw all the yellow items that were in the good-for-life wash bag, I knew that my wife had over stepped the mark. Never let it be said that I am not a very tolerant, caring husband, but too may yellow items in the good-for-life wash bag and not enough yellow pegs in the peg bag is really taking the biscuit. I tried to control myself, but there is only so much a man can take, and not enough coloured pegs to coordinate my wash line on a Monday morning when I was all hot and sweaty from my early morning trudge was enough to tip me over the edge. I stormed up the garden path, through the orchard, across the vegetable patch, passed the large greenhouse, around the polytunnel, across the paddock into the kitchen to give my wife a piece of my mind. Normally I am calm and collected, but not today! Not enough yellow pegs indeed. Doesn’t she plan her shopping list and make a note of when a shortage might arise? I always make sure the wine cellar is stocked and I cannot remember the last time we ran short of a can of beer. Organisation. Simple. So where was the required number of yellow pegs? The yellow pillow cases hanging on the clothes line with red pegs simply looked ridiculous. Stupid. Same with my yellow socks. What would the neighbours have to say about that? I would be the laughing stock of the village if it got out. So I was at boiling point as I stormed into the kitchen. I had all my facts ready. I was going to tell her that she had to budget her housekeeping allowance more carefully and buy more yellow pegs or she simply had to be more careful about which coloured items she washed together to accommodate the various coloured pegs we had. I was going to pull no punches. I was going to tell her straight. And, what is more, if she tried to retaliate like the last time I had to chastise her for her lack of household budgeting by putting all my white underclothes in the wash with her red running top, the one that was not colour fast and the dye leeches out, making my vests and underpants pink, I will be very upset. It took many weeks of bleaching to get rid of the pink; the clothes never became fully white again but ended up a mucky grey. I was too embarrassed to go to the juju lady when I was ill in the fear that she might ask me to strip and I would be all exposed, resplendent in my pink undies. Or grey undies. What would the neighbours have to say about that? I would be the laughing stock of the village if it got out. Pink undies!!! (Or grey undies!!!) So equipped with all my arguments I threw open the kitchen door, stormed inside without taking off my outdoor shoes and putting them on the shoe rack behind the kitchen cabinet which is on the left hand side of the sink next to the Aga cooker but in front of the waste bin, and what do I find? She wasn’t there. I cannot remember giving her leave of absence, not on a Monday morning with all the dishes from the previous night still to be washed up. She’d gone. GONE. She had brazenly left me a note to say that she had popped down to the Village Hall for a coffee morning and I would have to make my own breakfast. Can you believe that Blog, or can you believe that Blog? And I don’t even know where she keeps the paracetamol to treat my man flu.

                                                   Colin