Pegging out

Instead of an engagement ring, I sometimes think I ought to be wearing a tumble dryer on my left hand. A dryer was the first major shared purchase husband and I made when we began living together, and as such it had huge significance, at least to me. I've discovered anew how important the machine is to the running of my life, though perhaps not quite on a par with marriage. I say 'perhaps'.

My family and I have spent most of August in England, having swapped our house in Toronto with that of friends in Brighton. It's lovely, our borrowed home, perched on a hill in a neighbourhood not far from, but quite different to the one that used to be ours when we lived here. Ours was on a flat tree-lined avenue by the seafront. We love getting to have a vacation in our old hometown and at the same time to explore it from a new angle. 

This house has comfortable sofas, large and light rooms, and cosy studies for self and husband. It has numerous floors and an interesting layout, and for several days we amused ourselves getting lost on the way to the bathroom. It has a dishwasher and a washing machine, two ovens and an elegant, four-footed cast-iron wood-burning stove in the sitting room. There's a television with a games console on which the boys are currently playing FIFA 2000-something. It has wi-fi.  There is a charming and well-tended garden filled with fruit and flowers and curious cats. We have picked all the ripe produce we could reach; several apple crumbles have been baked. There are friendly neighbours next door.

The house has, however, no tumble dryer, something which does not make it at all unusual in this part of the world. I'm not sure I know anyone in Toronto who has a washing machine but no dryer, while I have discovered anew on this visit that quite a few of my friends exist in what I see as a laundry half-life. During my five years of living in Canada I had forgotten about the puzzling English indifference to this convenient contraption, and thus I decided to conduct a casual survey, the better to understand, in keeping with my mission, the transatlantic divide. A few sample responses to my questions about ownership of a dryer: 'It damages the clothes, doesn't it?' 'Dryers use so much energy.' 'Clothes smell better when they've dried outdoors.'  Some respondents (aka dear friends) who confess to possessing a machine-- and it does come across as a shameful weakness-- are quick to say that they resort to it only occasionally, when necessary. They lower their voices. You would think I'd been inquiring about their cocaine habits.

'Pegging out' wet washing on the line is regarded as an undertaking that requires moral as well as physical heft, and friends/respondents wax poetic about the scent of clothes dried outside in sunshine and wind compared to those flung about inside a hot metal drum. Never mind that clothes left hanging to dry acquire the texture of cardboard and require rigourous ironing to be wearable. Never mind the time it takes to hang each individual item and secure it with clothespins (no, North Americans, these funny little clips are not only for kindergarteners' wet paintings). Never mind that in England, stretches of uninterrupted dry, let alone sunny weather are few and far between. I recall numerous 'mums' day out' lunches brought to an abrupt end by approaching rain clouds: 'Oh dear, my washing is on the line! Must dash.' 

I guess I here reveal, and succumb to, my essential American-ness. To me, clothes that have been hanging about outside seem less clean than before washing. Outdoors is where knickers and linens encounter dust and muck and bird droppings. An Anglo-Canadian friend (she swings both ways) recently described to me some former neighbours of hers here in England, an American couple who kept trying to use a British contraption called the 'washer-drier', a machine that claims (falsely) to be able to dry as well as wash a load of clothing. The neighbours' dogged persistence with the appliance allowed my friend the full use of the circular clothes line in the shared back garden. Eventually, after some months, however, the Americans 'went native' and began competing for space on which to hang-dry their wet washing. Soon thereafter they gave up and fled across the Atlantic, back to laundry sanity.

It's not that I don't care about the health of the planet and environmental sustainability; I do. It's just that, in pursuit of eco-credentials, I would rather ride my bike, or walk, and eschew driving my car, than give up the tumble dryer.

Let me hasten to add that on this visit I have also been reminded of other, more essential aspects of what I love and miss about England, as well as what I appreciate about Toronto. 

What I love and miss about England:


1) The countryside 

Walking in Firle, East Sussex

2) The sea, the sea

Shingle on Hove seafront

3) The history

A window in Durham Cathedral, depicting the story of Northeast England

4) The vampire rabbit

In Newcastle-upon-Tyne

5) The Sussex coast

One of the Seven Sisters

What I appreciate about 'Toronto the Good':

1) Our home, our neighbourhood, and the friends, pets, cafes, and culture that go with it. See you soon!

2) The ubiquity of tumble dryers. 

Wet day in Brighton

And now, must dash. Laundry on the line!