Laundry baskets historically

Different application, same atavism

Traditional “woven” laundry baskets go back a long way. My 96-year-old Grannie had one and I have no reason for thinking they didn’t predate her. But more than that bare fact, such artefacts shed light on the development of technology and the cost of labour. For one thing they reflected a period when virtually all home-laundered materials were dried by hanging them out on a line. Thus even quite poor families required an appropriate (ie, perforated) container for transporting wet stuff out into the back yard.

These days plastics is the logical solution. But, then, cheap plastics hadn’t been invented. Labour was cheap, hence the “woven” basket. Theoretically a woven basket would now cost a lot more than a plastic one but this wouldn’t allow for the fact that these days machines can weave. There’s a philological point here. We still call these things “baskets”, but it’s an imprecise – perhaps unsatisfactory - word when referring to plastics, even though some plastic laundry baskets are moulded criss-cross fashion that echoes weaving.

As if some people can’t let go of the past. Leading to practical oddities. My in-laws had a gas-fired open-hearth installed, with plastic shapes electrically lit to suggest the embers of a coal fire. Yet they were not well off. Sometimes they would sacrifice “real” warmth for “illusory” warmth by switching off the gas fire and making do with just the illumination.

I can’t say I like laundry baskets. I see them as emblems of the Monday mornings on which my mother used “to do the washing”. For some reason which I cannot explain I found laundering a depressing ritual even though I wasn’t directly involved in it. The detergent had a pungent smell which irritated my nasal passages. Even as I write, that smell… 

Bye-bye yesterday

You might say its nature was compromised

Daughter PB has returned to teaching after several weeks looking after us. So it’s back to domestic duties for me and the daily comforting of VR, spouse of 63 years. No more stretching out a hand for a meal and a drink. Last might it was a valedictory Manhattan cocktail.

While she’s here PB does much laundering and has presided over the last useful days of our laundry basket. A woven structure, it has shed broken-off lengths of bamboo for months; now a handle has torn away. I promised to replace it with something plastic but PB proved to be surprisingly sentimental about the wreck. No matter, once I’d dropped her at the bus station I was off to J-Mart, the store with the infinite range of products.

Even VR proved slightly mournful, remembering where she’d bought it – a basketwork shop in Kingston-upon-Thames, some 45 years ago. I hate nostalgia and the way it glories the past over the present yet I have to confess I find it impossible to throw away my climbing boots, bought in 1953.

Since I’d had little to do with the basket I didn’t grieve at its passing. Not a fan of baskets, don’t like the way they creak. But where should ours be discarded? With the uprooted weeds, given it was once organic itself?

Its replacement is plastic and shaped like a baby’s cradle. It cost £5.99 and I suspect the basket cost the same all those years ago. It will “see me out” as my Grannie would say. It doesn’t have the same traditional form as its predecessor but it feels handier. Also it’s lighter.

I subscribe to the view that I may write about anything but I reckon there’s little more to be said about this minor washroom event.  

Was I someone else?

One may criticise one’s own looks publicly; I’ve done this often. But may one refer to one's “good” looks? It could attract ribaldry.

In 1997 I was 61. That year I skied France’s greatest ski area, The Three Valleys, and here’s my ski pass. Chances are I did my favourite route: alone, up to the head of the Méribel valley, cross over into Val Thorens, ski down, take the cable car to the top of the isolated and conical peak, Cima Caron, ski down and scuttle off to catch one of the last lifts of the day back to Méribel.

But this isn’t about ski-ing. Look again at the face on that pass. I am astonished. Lordy me! Almost handsome, almost pretty. Was that really me?

Which may explain an odd event. I shared a chalet with married couples, friends with each other, from Richmond, near London. All wealthy – the men doctors, the women solicitors (US: attorneys). Educationally I should have been out of my depths but – inevitably – I competed. And when it came to writing a valedictory card for the wonderful chalet girl I was voted the job.

Yes, quite sickening. But there’s more.

On the last day the others were scheduled to leave the chalet before me and I did the washing up. Several women came into the kitchen to – Wow! - kiss goodbye. Dispassionate kisses y'unnerstand, but kisses nevertheless. Good grief! Remember, these were Brits, not ever-kissing Americans. Then two other women, less certain of themselves, came in and waited for me to kiss them. Being a Brit myself I remained aloof and they retreated, visibly hurt. I regret this but I’ve never been a take-the-initiative kisser.

Not me at all.

Mini-gallimaufry

SPENDTHRIFT ROBINSONS No, it’s not a fly-paper. It’s a record of the first or second (equally horrific) spend at the Carrefour supermarket kicking off our recent holiday in France. Ninety-seven items – many of them multiples – totalling €655.87 ($715.87). Not forgetting, as I said, another day’s Carrefour visit where a similar sum was spent.

Some items may be rather exotic to those whom the French call Anglo-Saxons. Foie de veau (calf’s liver), for instance. Two oignons Lézignan (onions from the eponymous commune in Corbières). L’Equipe (daily newspaper devoted entirely to sport). Four 50 cl bottles of eau gazeuse (fizzy water). 130 gm of éminces soja (vegan stuff). Allumettes végétal (literally: vegetable safety matches).

Happy expensive days.

POSSIBLY AN ENGLISH TRAIT. Daughter PB, presently looking after us, tells the story. In London a middle-aged woman runs desperately to catch a bus. The driver notices her and slows. She reaches for the grab handle and, abruptly, her knickers drop round her ankles. A moment’s thought and she kicks the knickers under the bus. Then steps up on to the platform.

Some people fear humiliation more than pain. I rather like the thought that this quick-witted protagonist punched the sky triumphantly. A resolution we would all applaud.

Gardens may be lovesome but are also hard work

The secondhand pots (see previous post) find a new home. The best one - which should have cost £50 - £60 but only cost a tenner - is on the extreme left, Coimpliments have  been paid by passers by. I will now resign as a garden designer.

Pot hunt

Capacious and pretty. Worth ten quid to anyone

My distaste for gardening is well-known. Yet daughter PB and I spent last week happily engaged in a garden-related pursuit. How come? A brain storm? A Damascene moment on the patio? A horticultural visitation from On High?

Each weighed a ton. Utterly hurricane-proof

None of these. Let’s go back two decades. In 1998 we moved into a newly built home. Luxurious by our standards except for a pathetic strip of lawn at the front. Flush with having sold a house within 12 miles of London we had the lawn replaced with a fancy brick-laid surface surrounded by fancy railings. For decoration, plants in largish pots.

Hand-crafted at £6.50 each

As years rolled by it occurred to me that these randomly placed pots could hardly be regarded decorative. There was no plan, there weren’t enough of them, and many just weren’t big enough. I had looked into this earlier and reeled away in shock. The prices of simple pots that suited my purpose were ridiculous. I have dough but I simply hate being taken to the cleaners.

Sleek matching pair; cost us £30

But PB had a solution – Facebook’s Marketplace. A source of reasonably priced, garden pots, admittedly secondhand but then pots don’t show too many signs of wear. Straightaway I saw Pot One – typically retailing at £50 - £60 – going for a tenner. And, for £45, a collection of five or six pots made to the owner’s specs.

But it wasn’t just price. We travelled round and about the lovely Welsh Marches (Bartestree, Monmouth, St Briavels) paying what was asked and briefly enjoying the company of people who were relieved to be treated as human beings which is apparently not always the case with online transactions. Later I enjoyed an exterior design moment: less (ie, fewer clusters) is more. So the pots will be gathered like Biblical sheep. 

The finished layout will be shown.

New horse, same stable

It's called Two Homelands and, yes,

those are gents' urinals on the cover.

I've been told they won't attract readers.

TD fans, prove the nay-sayers wrong.

What a bargain! Two-hundred-and-ninety pages, thirty-six stories for… actually, I’ve no idea about the price. Six pre-pub copies of the book - the one on the right - arrived today and I hurried into print. Wanted to show there was life in the old dog yet.

Much of the content – but not all - appeared in Tone Deaf over the years. Always assuming you read it at the time, you’ll have forgotten it by now. Go on a voyage of re-discovery, round the world and back. Think to yourself: gosh, what a life he led. Not that it’s all autobiographical. I do admit to a certain degree of imagination.

Keep me from starving in a garret. If that’s a cliché then it’s not typical of what’s between the covers.

More follows.