Mrs Washalot

and they kept their handkerchiefs in cardboard boxes

Grace has a snuffly cold. It's come on very suddenly, just this morning she said, mummy, I've got a snotty nose. There have been lots of requests for face washings and cream under her nose. As in zinc nappy cream, why? Possibly because of the no blood, no bandaid rule we've instituted. There's also been hankies. She hasn't quite mastered blowing or wiping her nose with a handkerchief, but this winter I reckon.

We've also started reading When We Were Very Young, by AA Milne, 1924, in a nice hardback reissue with the original drawings but coloured rather than the black and white line drawings we had as a child. Not original but it's so nicely done, I think it's an improvement. I loved this book as a child and I still remember lots of the words. And there's handkerchief carrying foxes.

Once upon a time there were three little foxes
Who didn't wear stockings, and they didn't wear sockses,
But they all had handkerchiefs to blow their noses,
And they kept their handkerchiefs in cardboard boxes.

Anyway, at playgroup today, as I whipped out the hankie to wipe Grace's nose and go through the teaching process, one of the other mothers gave me one of those looks. The OMG she's using a hankie, oh how disgusting, eeew, look. I know that look, as a hankie lover I've seen it many times. But can I just say this, if you wash a used handkerchief in laundry detergent in the washing machine, dry them in the sun and then if you're feeling really houswifely, iron them, there's not a germ that would survive. Truly. And they are so much more pleasant on the nose, or eyes if you're crying, than tissues. Really.

choreplay

I found this gem in the Sunday Life section of The Age a couple of weeks ago.

"Choreplay" is a term born after research found that having a partner do the laundry, unload the dishwasher or vacuum the living room doesn't just put women in the mood (for sex I assume), it also reduces stress and improves their general health. 

You don't say? And there's that phrase again down at the end, domestic gods... What is the world coming to?

In other news, there's been an increased level of washing and other housework here the last few days. The house had reached a level of filth neither of us could abide, and we have guests arriving to sleep on the foldout and on the floor. Musty bedlinen has been washed and aired and last night as I sat at my computer and listened to the thunder and rain, I thought, oh well there's washing on the line but, yeah it's raining. Rain is good. Sheets wet, can't be faffed, will deal with it tommorrow. Imagine my delight when I saw that G had thought (and acted), with no prompting from me, to bring the washing in. How cool is that? 

bajamas

I think I love the Bananas in Pyjamas Playtime Book (Katrina Van Gendt,  ABC Enterprises 1992) more than any book linked to a TV show deserves to be loved. Indeed I love this book much, much more than Bananas in Pyjamas on TV which I find irritating and puzzling. On the TV show, the bananas are twins and the teddies are somewhat incompetent adults (as far as I can work out).

These books, of which there are three (all out of print and expensive online, but turn up at the opshop) are charming. Playtime (Grace calls it the bajamas book) was a favourite finisher for pre-bed reading for ages, followed by singing the song. In these books the teddies are clearly toddlers and pre-schoolers, doing familiar ativities and the bananas are most definitely their carers. There are other carers, like beetroot man and zucchini in bikini but they're not on every page. I'm not exactly what role the bananas have here but it's way less stated than on TV. And I just love the final page where one of the teddies is asleep in a Banana's arms and another teddy is being carried upstairs by the other Banana. It's so tender and sweet. Grace often goes awww and presses her face to the page (quite a common reaction when she sees affection in books). The Bananas could be foster carers, or run a wildly fun childcare centre. Perhaps gay male parents. Or some other set up entirely. I love how open it all is.

This ilustration is from the page: On Friday they all played with water. We've been doing quite a lot of that here lately. Setting up the plastic shell under the clothes line, once it's shady. Normally at the end of the day after I've bought the washing in. Gee, I miss the sprinkler though and squirting the hose. And deep play pools. We fill ours with one bucket. And I'm sure even that's illegal.

Still, there's something very Australian about this picture. We don't have frangipani and banana palms much in Melbourne. Maybe it's set in Queensland? Grace always points to the Banana hanging his pyjamas on the line saying, and his clean socks too. Do you think he might be yelling at the teddys not to squirt water on his nice clean washing? Oh no, a banana wouldn't yell at a teddy. Even if it was really, really hot and he still had to do some housework while everyone else played in the pool. Hopefully he got to sit with his feet in the water for a while afterwards. Without a constant barrage of requests for drinks and other stuff each time he sat down.

Feck it's hot.

crisp cotton sheets, drying in the sun

I do love to watch sheets billowing in a warm summer breeze. Knowing that they will be completely dry and ready to fold at the end of the day. That the smell of outside will keep in the linen press (in the bathroom even) for a good couple of weeks. The way the sheets snap when you fold them.

Feeling and smelling that outside crispness when you crawl into bed. Especially when the day was so long and busy that you forgot that you changed the sheets that morning.

This doona cover is 300 (or 350, but more than 250 which is the standard below which I don't think it's worth going) cotton percale from Target in a sale a couple of years ago, with many more years to go. Not my favourite colour doona cover (although getting better as it fades) but the nicest feeling one. Affordable luxury of the best kind. We also have a sheet set in cream, which I bought at the same sale. Divine.

ironing al fresco at midnight

Ya, haa, ha, ha. How far away from the truth is this? Mothers (and some fathers too, I guess) everywhere have been working away preparing for the Chrsitmas frenzy of feasting and exchange. I've seen women in the supermarket today with big round, I'm so tired but I just can't stop until it's all done eyes. I never realised how much work Christmas with children could be until this one. It should be more fun. It will be more fun.

And talking about presents, who in the right mind would give someone an ironing board for Christmas? Unless they really, really wanted one? The Christmas my dad gave my mum an axe as a present is legendary in out family. Don't do it fellas.

This picture is from a 2002 Home Beautiful, from a little section the back (hence the less than clear picture) where they poke fun at the appliances and household trends from the past. In the future it'll be breadmakers?

I feel as though I'm well behind here. Several pictures ready and waiting to have words put around them, including two from others which are my favourite sort. Hopefull there'll be some time for idle writing in the post christmas lull. Or I may just watch dvds on the couch. I certainly won't be ironing (unless sewing realated) that's for sure.

 

So anyway, I'm nearly all done. Because otherwise why would I be doing a blog post? Tonight after Grace unwraps presents from her Tasmanian side of the family (presents on Christmas eve is a German tradition so I'm told and spreading it all out works for me), eats some chocolate and goes to bed (hopefully), we're going to wrap her presents, put them under the tree and drink a bottle of lambrusco. All of it. And then tommorrow will come as it will.

So Merry Christmas readers!

first day of summer

Yesterday was gorgeous, warm but not too hot. A flower scented balmy breeze wafting through the garden. G did a load of washing and I watched it dry as I sat in the sunroom with my sewing. The washing stayed out all night but that's alright, it's summer now. Now, he's bought it all in because he's mowing the law, before the plums start to fall. Maybe I should go help with the folding, ahem.

No doubt, it will get hotter and drier. The balmy nights will give way to those awful, too hot nights. The sort where you don't sleep well and the next day is hard because it's still too hot and everyone is grumpy and tired, and complaining about the heat. Yet it's kind of relaxed because it's too hot to actually do anything but drink beer and other long cold drinks and eat icypoles. Early summer though, just lovely.

clean your teeth, domestic goddess

   

Home Beautiful, October 2001. Obviously being a domestic goddess was the new next big thing, but with a nod to the blokes. Because it was, afterall, the beginning of a new millenium. Personally I think the whole domestic goddess thing was a bit of a fizzer, except for Nigella, but then she was/is a category all of her own. And I suspect baking is far more glamorous than laundry will ever be.

 

Although laundry provides one with more opportunities to be bitter and cantakerous. Says she clutching a frozen teething ring wrapped in a tea towell to her jaw. Typing one handed. On her third round of panadol/ibuprofen since the root canal installment this afternoon. Without anaesthetic (of which she is insanely proud).

Eventhough I would admire (drool over) a linen cupboard with a pile of very neat folded sheets, I am pretty certain that I will never, ever fold a fitted sheet like this. And neither will G. But Suse might. So this is for her. Complete with wonky instructions that mention domestic gods who read magazines and fold. Yes, those domestic gods.

Yesterday, as I hung out the lintiest load of washing ever, I thought to myself, there's no way I am anything but a sad domestic mortal. Note to self, do not wash black t-shirts with white fringed beach towells. Especially not in a washing machine that has no lint filter. When I came to bring in that load of laundry, I couldn't bear to put it away. It was just to awful to contemplate wearing t-shirts that linty.  Then I had a moment of domestic competence and cleaned out the washing machine. I wiped it, de-gunked anything I could see and then ran a cycle with a full load of water and 2 litres of cheapo vinegar. Which cleans away all the soap scum and leaves it all a fair bit cleaner than before. I thought of Jude, because when she asked I didn't think I knew anything about how to clean a washing machine. But there you go. I don't think I could justify doing it very often, because of the water, but my t-shirts came out a fair bit less linty the second time around. Not perfect but bearable.

yet another use for the hills hoist

The other evening at the dentist, as I was waiting for my root canal treatment, flicking through the trashy magazines and trying not to be bothered by the sounds of two radios (on different stations) and a dental video, I happened upon this. In the current Cosmopolitan, a magazine I would never buy, because I am far too old for that sort of nonsense. Indeed, I think I'm probably old enough now to be the mother of women in this demographic. But anyway.

 

It's an ad for jeans. And there's another one in the same series where the man is wedged in what looks like a commercial ironing press in some sort of factory. I'd include it here but the picture came out kind of blurry. This looks like some sort of caravan park. Romanticising poverty, or are they on holidays? Housework as a kind of domination, slightly kinky and perverted? Instead of just plain work. Or is it just a convenient angle for his butt?

in the country

Of ccourse, when I go away for the weekend, I immediately check out the laundry features. Of course. Not. But I always do notice them. Forgive me if I'm being sarcastic, I've had a couple of vodka cruisers (yum, melon and raspberry) and it's been a long, long week. All the more ardous after a glorious half weekend away. At the end of a very intense few weeks. Our routines are shot, Mr Helpalot has started a new job, the house is absolutely feral and I just could not be bothered ironing my work clothes last week. So I looked even more rumpled than usual.

But I wouldn't have missed the weekend for quids and isn't this a beauty to behold.

I very much like the path and the stump to put the washing basket on. The view in the morning would be full of soft light and mist in the winter. And you'd see a sunset when you were bring the washing in. Or at least, I would because I'm slack and tend to leave as long as I can. To delay cluttering up the house and needing to be folded. My only worry with this washing line would be snakes, there's lots of long grass nearby and it looks like snake territory to me.

in praise of the linen press

One feature that always excites me when we've been househunting is the presence of a linen press. Some houses have them and some don't. Many old houses do, and the best ones, in my opinion are in the hallway, not in the bathroom. Some are beautifully finished and well laid out, with shelves of just the right depth and height. Others are rough and carelessly put together and I wonder about sheets snagged and years of constant irritation. I have yet to see a press with labels on the shelves and a neat array of folded linen like this. Or with a list of household linen pinned inside the door.

The illustration is from  a 1928 Home Beautiful article (via The Australian Home Beautiful, Julie Oliver, Pacific Publications 1999) and apparently, in the 1920s and 1930s, a beautifully managed collection of linens marked a household managed with skill. The accompanying article covered everything from lace mats and damask tableclothes to bedlinen and pillow slips, including hints for buying and repairing. How I wish it had been reprinted,so I could read it. Not that I aspire to a be a perfect keeper of linens, I'm quite happy in the land of if it's all cotton, clean, dry and doesn't smell bad, it'll do. Nonetheless, the idea of a perfect linen press fascinates me.

We don't have many tableclothes (damask or otherwise) or napkins but we do have teatowels, bath towels, facewashers and a full supply of bedding, including sheets for the guest bed and for events like sickness or camping. At present we have a linen press in the bathroom and it is not ideal. It is narrow and deep, and in the bathroom which is probably the worst place in the house to store fabric. But as I walk around houses without one at all, I'm thinking, but where do they keep their sheets?