“A wooden clothes prop?” The lady in the timber yard looked amazed. She’d clearly never heard of such a thing.
But yes, that was what I wanted – a plain old fashioned wooden clothes prop with a little notch in the end. Simple. My old one had finally given up the ghost after thirty years and I’d been making do with metal ones that rusted, collapsed and trapped my fingers.
Back to basics. A simple wooden clothes prop, like my mum used to have.
“So do you dry your washing outside then?” asked the timber yard lady, clearly still thinking I was some sort of fruit loop.
But of course. It’s free for a start – brilliant. Even in the winter you can usually get clothes half dry at least, which saves on tumble drier costs. And in the summer, the sunshine is wonderful, dries clothes beautifully and bleaches out stains.
Best of all is the lovely fresh smell.
Even in a city flat when I dried my clothes on a balcony above the traffic fumes, they still smelled a lot nicer than when they’d dried inside on radiators.
Anxious to get rid of me, the lady said “We’ll go and ask Paul.”
I followed her down the length of the yard, past all the neat piles of seasoned timber and found Paul. I explained. His face lit up. “I made one for us just last month,” he said.
The lady looked relieved. Perhaps I wasn’t a fruit loop after all. “It’s the only way to dry clothes really,” Paul told her. “Saves a fortune on the electric.”
Paul went straight to a pile of timber and picked a length out ‘Eight foot is about what you want” he said and zipped the timber in half. “Do you want a notch?” and quick as a flash his saw buzzed out a V for me.
It just fitted in my car. It cost me £2. It will save me a fortune.
And not trap my fingers either…
Listen to – what else? Blowing in the Wind, Bob Dylan
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The Canny Time Traveller 