Very early on Sunday morning, sitting at my pc opening emails, and up pops a little email of scant words:
"Hi. I found a book about clotheslines and posted it on my blog today! You are one of the few people who might be interested!"
Hmm, I thought, so over to Jan's blog and Oh My Goodness, her few words belied a Grand Canyon of delight. Books about laundry, and even better, not just doing the laundry, but about arranging your laundry room. Oh how my little heart leapt for joy.
I love the sun with the sticks for rays, the woman's pinny and red polka dot skirt, I love the wicker laundry basket, but best of all I love that she's hanging out rectangular laundry. Oh this book must surely have been designed and written for me. If you click on this link, you can read a few pages and check out what sort of laundry liner you are; a willy-nilly clothes hanger, an uncomplicated hanger, or are you, like the photographer for this book, someone who, "remembers everything his mother told him but hangs a renegade clothesline."
This book is just as gorgeous, and if you click on this link, you can scroll through a few pages of the book. Who in their right minds keeps clothes pegs, (albeit gorgeous wooden ones that are utterly impractical and useless in conditions any greater than 2 on the Beaufort Scale), in a large glass screw top jar? Who knows; who cares, but I'm off to Nottingham this morning to buy some wooden pegs to keep as a decorative item in my laundry room. You see Jan, all this from your 25-word email.
4 comments:
I love all this! You are much more descriptive than I am--all I wrote was that I liked the cover picture! Such fun to read it all. Thanks for all the fun links, too.
Jan, I'm going to make a comment on April's blog next - she has three laundry lines on the go! THREE! Lucky begger!
Where is April's blog?
Amalee... My grandfather sent me this. It is a little too nostalgic, but thought of you when I read it.
Cheers! ~April
CLOTHESLINES
A clothesline was a news forecast
To neighbors passing by.
There were no secrets you could keep
When clothes were hung to dry.
It also was a friendly link
For neighbors always knew
If company had stopped on by
To spend a night or two.
For then you'd see the fancy sheets
And towels upon the line;
You'd see the company table cloths
With intricate design.
The line announced a baby's birth
To folks who lived inside
As brand new infant clothes were hung
So carefully with pride.
The ages of the children could
So readily be known
By watching how the sizes changed
You'd know how much they'd grown.
It also told when illness struck,
As extra sheets were hung;
Then nightclothes, and a bathrobe, too,
Haphazardly were strung.
It said, "Gone on vacation now"
When lines hung limp and bare.
It told, "We're back!" when full lines sagged
With not an inch to spare.
New folks in town were scorned upon;
If wash was dingy gray,
As neighbors raised their brows,
And looked the other way.
But clotheslines now are of the past
For dryers make work less.
Now what goes on inside a home
Is anybody's guess.
I really miss that way of life.
It was a friendly sign
When neighbors knew each other best
By what hung on the line!
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