The noble art of laundry

I have never before lived with a communal laundry room. When I mentioned this to my youngest son, he wondered: But didn't you have communal laundry rooms in Russia when you were young? Well, no. I had never seen a washing machine before I came to Sweden, aged 30.

According to the family legend, when my grandfather was a young man, he washed his only shirt in a soup plate.

When I was a child, there was a washing woman coming to do the family's laundry. She was old, with wrinkled face and one tooth. She looked like a witch, and I was mortally scared of her. I cannot say how often she came because the sense of time is different when you are a child, but I would guess maybe twice a month, and it took her a whole day. She washed our linen in the bathtub and hung it to dry in the kitchen, with gas stove at full capacity. Then she spread an old blanket on the kitchen table and ironed the sheets with huge black irons heated on the gas stove.

Later on, laundry would be taken to a state laundry place, or actually, there would be someone to collect and deliver. The sheets were heavily starched and smelled cheap soap. Smaller laundry, like women's underwear, would be done discretely by the owner in the bathtub. Those lucky to have a balcony would hang their things there to dry. You may have seen this in old movies. Washing powder was in short supply, so it was soap, and your hands would get coarse. (Hard cream was in short supply too). If you happened to be in a shop at the right moment when washing powder was in stock, you'd alert your friends, and they would be there within half an hour. The sense of community was strong in those days.

I think the first washing machines came in mid-70s, but they were expensive, and, more importantly, there was no room for them in our crammed housing. No one I knew had a washing machine back then.

During my first year in Sweden we rented a house, at a nominal price, from a friend; more or less house-sat while the house was on the market. Thinking back, I realise that there was a laundry room in the basement, used by two more families. Maybe my husband did the laundry during the time, because I don't remember ever doing it.

The house we eventually bought had a huge basement with plenty of space for both washing machine and tumble dryer. Ever since, I have taken it for granted. When we bought the house in Milton, it didn't have a tumble dryer, but we quickly discovered that in Cambridge climate a clothline worked just as well, and it did for ten happy years. The past year, in Gatehouse, I had a tumble dryer again, and I could wash and dry as I pleased.

Now suddenly I understand why my youngest son would sometimes say, as we skyped: ”I cannot talk to you now, I must do the laundry”. In my new home, there is a communal laundry in the basement. You have to book your laundry time through an app. I find it exciting, like a new game. Although I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive first time. What if I did something wrong? Well, I didn't. I booked a morning slot, and I went down with my laundry, chose an appropriate programme and went up to the flat again, set an alarm and tried to focus on something else. Went down, moved my stuff to the tumble dryer, went up, set the alarm. Two hours later, all done, and all my things folded neatly, Marie Kondo-style, and I reward myself with coffee and biscuit on the balcony.

But this is just the beginning. I have never contemplated the frequency of doing your laundry because I could always do it whenever I felt like it. Should I decide on a particular day of the week? I am privileged in that I can choose the least attractive slots on weekdays in the middle of the day. Or shall I just see when I need it? If you are laughing now, consider that I am in my late sixties and have never had this dilemma. Everything is new. Isn't life just wonderful?

Looking back at my childhood, or remembering women I saw during my African holidays, washing by the river, beating their washing with stones and hanging it on trees to dry, I remind myself to be humble and grateful. Also, being ecologically minded, I want to plan my laundry so that I don't do it more often than absolutely necessary.