Saturday, May 15, 2010

Sunlight

Long, long ago, in another life, I used to work in the most wonderful shop, called "The Wine Cellar". They sold over 1000 labels of wine, and then some beers, mixers and spirits. We often had tea sitting outside, and I would make a point of sitting in the sun, (unless it was midsummer) so that I could get my 10 minutes worth of sunlight to manufacture vitamin D, to process calcium so that I would not get the old ladies common ailment, oestioporosis.

Wow, now I spend so much of my time outdoors, I can't even imagine needing 'sun time'. If we are not fishing, we are mushrooming, or I am walking to town, or just cutting the lawn with the brushcutter. I thought that, having been warned that the island gets its rain in winter, we might be short of sun, but so far we have had only a handful of days when it has not shone at all. Mostly the weather changes by the half hour, and some of the rain showers last only 5 minutes and then the sun is out again.

While that does make hanging washing outside a whole new ballgame, so far I have been up to the challenge, and we do get clean clothes to wear.

4 comments:

  1. I recommend investing in a clothes horse, or jury rigging a line inside if you can find a spot. :-)

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  2. This is a wonderful house, but was not designed around ALL the furniture we brought with us. There is going to be no room to swing the cats, when they get here, never mind a horse!

    Seriously there is a short line under the roof of the verandah, which I am sure will do, if it is raining and the wind isn't blowing!

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  3. Where I grew up in Canada, we had a huge long clothes line, and only used the dryer when the clothes were freezing solid outside. In Australia, we had our watchamacallit umbrella thing outside, clothes horses for inside or on the back porch, and a dryer to be used only under dire emergencies. Here, where the talk is always about going green and saving the environment, I hardly ever see anyone hanging ouy their clothes. Everything goes in the dryer. I long for a decent clothes line!

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  4. When our kids were both in nappies we lived in the bushveld in SA, and the area had phutsie fly (which I can't spell). The fly laid eggs in washing, especially in elastic, and then the worms hatched out into your flesh. So everything we had was either in the machine, or ironed to kill the eggs. Now, we no longer own a machine, and I am hoping to go without, so far it has been fine, we just need a few good days while the boys are here as well>

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