A (LAUNDRY RELATED) PHOTO OPPORTUNITY
Thursday March 11th 2010, 9:04 am

a gaggle of geese down Laundry Lane

I am always on the look out for the perfect washing line to photograph and have a list of locations lined up. A bit like a bus tour of celebrities homes in Hollywood, I could take you on a tour of the Forest of Dean to show you my favourite washing lines. There’s the one that is tied directly onto the front of a Georgian house, that in spring is completely covered with wisteria. There is another strung across a well tended small holding; as the year progresses the laundry blows in the breeze above a carpet of cabbages and kale. Another favourite, is in the dip of a valley, so I’m sure that I will one day be able to aim and focus my camera and capture the washing line surrounded by the rising valley beyond. For that location I am looking for a Walton’s style (as in John Boy Walton) pick up truck to be parked in a particular spot and the yellow climbing rose that grows against a little greenhouse at one end of the washing line needs to be in flower.
You see the essence of this is that you really do have to be ready to capture the moment. Great landscape photographs are sometimes taken at a lucky moment, the photographer just happened to be there, see the picture and shoot. But more often than not, the image was the result of a well planned operation. The photographer saw the location and over time planned how to get the perfect shot, studied the way the light moves across the terrain, worked out the exact place to set up the tripod, what time in the morning they would need to set off to get there before the sun comes up etc. Sometimes the opportunity will be a one and only.
I’ve had a few that have got away through my own inability to get up and go. Like the wisteria clad house that year after year gave us locals a spectacular display. It was always in my mind to knock on their door and get myself ready to take the definitive washing line shot, but other events were more pressing so it would be left for another year. Then they flippin-well repointed and renovated the house which meant the wisteria was torn down. I feel sick just thinking about it, even now.
I often point out these locations to friends as we drive around. For some reason they are never as excited as me and sometimes completely ignore me, so perhaps the bus trip for tourists idea wont have many takers. The jist of this story, told in a laundry themed way, is carpe diem; sieze the pleasures of the moment without concern for the future. If you don’t get of your fat arse now they’ll rip down the wisteria and you’ll be left with regrets.

washing line and summer house



LIFE, LIVING AND LAUNDRY
Saturday October 27th 2007, 5:20 pm

Calling a blog ‘laundryetc’ I suppose there is a danger that readers will expect laundry tips and advice. That is not in fact my intention (though ‘never say never’ in case some uplifting snippet of household lore comes my way). I feel that cliched path is already well trodden. ‘Laundry’ for me is not so literal, it is more about what is blowing in the breeze than what is requiring attention in the utility room. Those house cleaning programmes on TV fronted by bossy matriarchs are not for me.

Since moving to the country last year after many years living in London some very fundamental things have changed in my life. I’m less likely to eat out and more likely to cook something fresh and seasonal. I’ve rediscovered and am reusing kitchen gadgets and machinery that I had forgotten I had. I’ve always loved baking but had got out of the habit. Preserving things in season has become a consuming passion. I have intensive sourdough bread weeks trying to achieve results similar to the artisan breads sold in the smart London delis I was used to frequenting. Of course I can buy posh loaves just down the road from here, you don’t have to live in London for such things (though when you live in SW2 you don’t realise that) but now I have the incentive to take the good life to another level because I’ve always been interested in making things and at the end of the day it is just so satisfying.

My old solid-fuel Rayburn is not the most glamorous example around but it came free from an old lady in the village who had reluctantly decided that her coal lugging days were over. The enamel is chipped and a little bit more falls off every time the door bangs shut, the flue snakes across the wall as the oven is on the wrong side for the position of the chimney and it is simple boring white not a fabulous colour like the newer models, but who cares, it is wonderful all the same. Concerned that burning solid fuel makes a carbon footprint the size of elephants feet I am trying to use every scrap of energy it generates to heat the water, heat the house, dry my laundry and slow cook casseroles.

I started my vegetable garden last spring so that is relatively new beginnings as I am only one season in. The plan is to build a brick oven out there as well to cook my sourdough bread in as well as the produce from the garden. I hope to show how these plans progress.
So what will this blog be about? Well all of the above really. I love things and ideas that upend the cliche, the colourful and unusual as well as being a research obsessive.

Anyhow, let’s see how things develop……

ROLAND - ONE OF THE LAUNDRY CATS
ROLAND – ONE OF THE LAUNDRY CATS