French Laundry - not the restaurant!

Laundry

Laundry is one of those weekly occurrences that the every day person probably doesn't think much about. Well, you can imagine what 5 rooms and two apartments can accumulate. So the idea of 'weekly' doesn't really exist. It's more like daily or even hourly. The mountains of laundry are truly mountains. These mountains are a constant routine of our day.

French washing machines are interesting. They hold quite a bit but take forever to run. The sheets have to be sanitized well so we run a very hot long cycle. The cycle sometimes takes 3 hours depending on the temperament of the machine that day!  (They are supposed to be 90 minutes).  Other laundry can run less time but still is quite long. So you can imagine we always have a load in the machine. It addition to the sheets, pillow cases and breakfast napkins we have lush bath towels and huge pool towels to wash. Don't forget the regular laundry of kitchen towels and our clothes.

Drying is a whole different affair. We have an electric dryer but it takes forever – like 3 hours for a load of towels! So to make the drying time less we put everything out on a clothes line to pre-dry.  Anything we've washed for the guests cannot be totally dry  because they either have to be finished in the dryer or ironed.  So we have to keep a constant eye on the clothesline to check the dryness level. Since sheets have to be ironed they have to have some moisture in them. If left to completely dry they are too hard to iron. Towels are never completely dried either because they need to be softened and fluffed in the drier for 20 minutes. Don't forget we live in a coastal environment so you may see a shower or two during the day. Run for the sheets and take them in. Then put them back out if the sun appears. Everything does smell quite nice though with the sunshine and sea air for drying.

 The clothes line was my idea and was welcomed as their drying rack was extremely limiting.  We finally purchased a clothesline kit.  It works but if we have too much rain or a strong wind, well, it just might decide to collapse!  It just adds to the drama of the day.  Generally it does just fine and we are SO GLAD to have a clothes line.  Things dry quite quickly in the sun and the wind.  

I think I'd rather be at the other French Laundry!!!