Kitchen Abstract

My kitchen abstract was taken directly from the kitchen counter where it always rests. All I did was enhance the reflected sunshine via Mobile Monet.

I have been ruminating on the differences and similarities in the English speaking cultures. I elaborated on this in my comment to Blipper blethers when she said her whirligig broke. I assumed from the context that she meant what we would call a ‘clothesline’. I couldn’t help wondering why the British, who have so much more rain year round than we do, would still go to some effort to get the washing hung outside, rather then dry it quickly and easily inside in a dryer.

I well remember my mother’s clotheslines both bythe square one with a central pole (a whirligig?) and the straight parallel lines next to the veggie garden. I even vaguely remember the wringer, two parallel rollers that one fed the clothes between by turning the handle. This rendered the clothes dry enough to stagger outside with them and peg them on the line. I loved it when she did this, at least when the peas were in season because I would follow along picking the fresh pods and eating the peas within.

A soon as they became ‘a thing’ however, my mother had a dryer. In Southern California where I grew up, there were very few days a year when one couldn’t hang clothes outside, yet the clothesline slowly disappeared from the landscape. Some housing developments with ‘rules’ even outlawed them as unsightly.

I had a clothesline which I used quite a lot when our dryer was broken for several weeks, but as soon as it was fixed I was quickly back to using the dryer. I never iron anything, the towels are not like boards, and although I grant that they don’t smell the same as if they were hung outside, they do smell nice and freshly laundered.

As the pandemic lingers on and the number of years I have been writing this daily journal increases, I think I find it more restful to wonder about odd cultural incongruities than to worry about how many people are vaccinated and whether another variant will come along .

I would be interested to know where any Australian followers might fit into the dryer vs. clothesline question…and why.