It's a typical rainy winter weekend down here in the south pacific. Not particularly cold, but very very wet. Which, if you have someone great to spend it with, a good bottle of wine and some interesting reading material, is a very nice recipe to end a chaotic week with. (no, we haven't had conversation yet. you'll know when it happens, trust me.)
However, the rain only becomes a problem when you have loads of laundry to do, need to pack for a work trip, and have no dryer:
No dryer? Don't say it's so! But it is. Alas, New Zealand is not known for the workhorse of a dryer that I grew up with in Canada and all of my North American readers enjoy. It's not pretty, but it still makes my heart beat just a littler faster.
Sure, you can buy a dryer in New Zealand. But, it's an electric one. Which basically means there's one little gremlin churning your clothes in a circle and randomly thinking about blowing in the direction of the clothes. It's hours days before your clothes start to resemble dry.
Instead I have resorted to these options:
Hanging clothes in the airing cupboard. What? Not familiar with an airing cupboard? You must be from North America, again. In an airing cupboard we dump loads of cash via our power supplier so that the water is continuously heated by an electric source. I know, ANCIENT.
I also hang clothes on a clothes horse. No? Not familiar with this either?! Popular with students, and introduced to me in the UK, this simply allows your clothes to air dry while providing some handy household humidifying on the side.
And finally, the option that clearly does not work, the outside clothes line. Very green with it's use of any available solar and wind power, but not always productive during winter months.
Which, if you're DINKS, you can totally live with any and all of these methods . Inconvenience? Sure. But still workable if you
put your mind to it.
New Zealanders are also, no surprise here, prone to procreating (64,1460 babies last year!). And, hey! Why not? It's fun, so easy, and provides endless hours of entertainment. There is just one burning question in my mind though:
HOW THE HELL ARE THEY DRYING ALL THOSE BABY CLOTHES?!!!
