full line of washing

I was up early this morning -for a Saturday – and had done two loads of washing before I was due to head off to Coventry in Middle Sis’s Big Blue van. Not a bad start to the day, sadly I get pleasure from seeing a line of washing (sheets are best). I know I’m not alone in this – my dear friend Sarah O agrees. Can’t be doing with a whirley drier. I know that Big Sis is a devotee of the washing line (see her blog June 10th) but Middle Sis sticks hers on the umbrella type contraption where smalls hang lifeless. My washing waves and billows, dances in the air and absorbs that clean smell from the atmosphere that Proctor & Gamble, Lever et al would kill to formulate.

Prompt as usual, Middle Sis arrived in her Big Blue van, curly boy and I climbed up and off we went. Laurie has spent the last two days dismantling his studio/shed from his back garden and the plan was to load it onto Wayne-from-over-the-road’s brother’s truck and drive it up here to Nottingham. Poor old van failed the MOT on Wednesday so we decided to dismantle anyway and bring up smaller stuff in Big Blue. Small stuff like four plan chests.

Laurie’s garden looks like a building site now, with piles of old wood stacked all around awaiting removal. His studio had originally been an MA installation from Nottingham Trent Uni (NTU) – no buyers for the 16x12ft shed with black interior and no windows (it had something to do with sound and sensory deprivation I seem to remember). The windows he set in it were huge glass panels etched with the words ‘some days I just can’t bear to be alive‘ which he had salvaged from Coventry Uni skips (another abandoned degree show installation).

We are all very excited because the shed will be reassembled on our allotment – about half an acre of land we have in the centre if the city, rented from the council allotment committee. ‘Our’ allotments are reputed to be the oldest in Europe and were set up by John Players (the cigarette people) as gardens for their workers. Originally each one had  a tiny brick built house, complete with fire grate and shuttered windows – a real retreat from the factory and the terraced houses.

Each allotment has a high hedge around it and inside feels like The Secret Garden. We have five in all, joined together – an orchard, hard core veg, country garden and my favourte a lawned, meadow like area where we sit and drink tea and chat. It is here that Laurie will rebuild his studio ‘but better’ and I will come every Wednesday and write and write and write without a telephone, or laundry or dishes to distract me.

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