Watchin' the Washin'

 At home, I have taken over the task of doing the wash, and Regis' mom would be proud of how good I've gotten at it. I sort of took over doing the wash while on vacation as well.

A Family's Washing

One of the advantages of renting a place and staying in one place for a while is that you do not have to pack as many clothes, because a rental usually has washing facilities. We have over the years of travel, built up a pretty good collection of specific travel clothes and one criteria for them is the need to be quick drying. In Spain this was a problem. We had a lovely apartment, but it was on the second floor of a four story building, so the only place to hang out clothes was in the outdoor patio which was enclosed by three stories of walls. The clothes took forever to dry; no wind and no sun. I used to look with envy across the street at the woman who would hang her clothes out in the morning and was able to take them in by noon. Here is Portugal we have access to the roof and there is a lovely clothes line up there. The wind blows, and the sun shines constantly. I can literally hang out the clothes and sit on one of the loungers for an hour and most of the clothes are dry (Linda has brought some things that take longer to dry – I'm trying to educate her on 'travel clothes')

Now I am beginning to worry about this. I think I am getting domesticated . . . . . I am fussy about how things get hung out; all the pants have to go together, longest to shortest, I worry about how my clothes line 'looks'. I want people to see that I know how to hang out a wash.

Interesting way to hang out wash

Now I also have started noticing other folks wash. The young family across the tracks seems to have a line out constantly, and sometimes she puts it out at night so she can take it in first thing in the morning and get another line out. Her clothes are hung out in a completely random order, but then she is normally running after a little guy who just will not listen to her. She even keeps a stroller up on the so if he is completely impossible she can strap him in there while she hangs out the wash. I actually was worried about them a week ago, when her same line of clothes was out for two days and I hadn't heard the little guy crying in a while.

Roof To Washing Flags

The old lady two doors down hangs out only one or two things at a time, and she brings it up in a wash basin, throwing it up the stairs ahead of her as she struggles to pull her old bones up onto the roof to hang things out.

As you look across the roofs of the houses between the apartment and the water, you see many lines of wash out, blowing in the sea breeze like flags. Many use the old fashioned poles to hold then higher when bed sheets are on the line, and one guy (Yup, I'm not the only 'guy' doing wash here in Portugal) has a strange arrangement where he has a tall pole in the middle of his roof with four lines going down to the corners, so his wash hangs on an angle.

Oh my god look at that line over there . . . . the underwear is all mixed up together . . . .