Wash day blues

My washing machine has been busy today. Load number seven has just made its way out to be dried. How do we create so much washing? There's only two of us for heaven's sake. OK, The Lurchers tend to create a certain amount....actually, thinking about it, they probably create more than we do - throws on the bed and sofa, covers on their 4 beds (as we feed raw bones and they tend to take them to whichever bed they choose to eat them (although not ours or the sofa you understand - that's not allowed), fairly regular washing of bed covers is a necessity). But all the same.....seven loads created over the last 4 days does seem a little excessive.



I recalled to mind an article I read in a newspaper a while ago. It said that with the advent of the washing machine, society today tends to wear things once then put them in the washing basket, without really thinking too much about it. Or, more likely, not thinking about it at all. We've come to take for granted that we will have freshly laundered clothes to wear everyday. If we had to do the washing by hand as our grandmothers had to, we might stop to think about whether an item actually requires washing before chucking it in the wash basket.



I'm so guilty of this...although I don't actually throw things that I've worn once into the wash basket, this is only because I don't actualy possess a wash basket. Instead, things get thrown onto the bedroom chair and stay there for the foreseeable future. When the mood takes me to do something about the pile of clothes threatening to avalanche onto the floor, it all needs ironing before I can wear it again. I really don't understand ironing and as I feel that it is something to be avoided at all costs, the clothes don't get ironed - they get thrown into another metaphorical wash basket and transported to the washing machine whereby they are washed, shaken out and hung to dry so that no ironing is required.



The point of this ramble is that I have decided, in future, I am going to put my clothes away when I take them off and not leave them in a discarded heap (oh how my mother would weep tears of joy to hear me say that!). Less washing, less damage to the environment (which was the whole point about the newspaper article in the first place.