Looking at a pile of clothes just dumped on the floor made me rage, well not massive rage but just enough rage to fire the burning desire to see carpet again and put everything in its place, well it is the school holidays! There's 5 of us in the house which means 4 sets of bedding, I've lost count of how many towels, Big Welsh has his work wardrobe which varies from suited and booted to smart casual to dress down, there's his cycling kit, my gym kit, their gym, sports and football kit, school uniform, swimming kit, change of clothes because someone got wet/dirty/spilt something, you get the picture!
Once I got started and cleared up the laundry in one room I then picked up courage to go to the next room and so it went on until I had a substantial pile of laundry, Admittedly it may have been clean but it had been on the floor and amongst the dirties so it was due for a wash. The picking up was cathartic and I found the act of sorting the laundry into piles bizarrely relaxing!
I can remember the days of old when whites, lights, darks and reds were sorted and woe betide anyone who mixed them. Me me! Yes I mixed Big Welsh's cricket whites with his red Welsh rugby top - well I was taking it one step further and mixing sports clothes with sports clothes I mean what can go wrong? Well white and red make pink and that was pretty wrong, nowadays its's any colour for cricket so I guess I was just ahead of my time!
Woollen and handwash items are the only things that I am really careful about having machine washed a really really nice cashmere jumper of mine so they're in a separate pile, towels are in one pile, anything with white on it is in the white pile and the darks, blacks and reds are all in another pile. Having gone through the bedrooms and laundry baskets I then looked at what needed to be dry cleaned so there's a pile of duvets and pillows that could do with some TLC and then some sleeping bags and throws that could do with a refresh wash.
The only things that could be an obstacele in this whole big washing fiasco are time and weather, so instead of having a major panic incase the rain clouds threaten I will take the dark pile to the launderette where they will wash, tumble and fold it before returning it back to me at the end of the day, meanwhile the towels are going through on a 60 degree wash lasting 1 hour and 6 minutes before going on the line. Meaning I can get 5 loads done and hung on the line to dry in good time! If it rains then they'll get bundled into the tumble dryer and will then find their way upstairs. And the whites? Well on the way back from the launderette I will be nipping into a friend's house for a cuppa, the minimum time spent there will be 1 hour and 6 minutes. A cuppa timed to perfection.
I'm a great fan of the launderette. Ever since a great friend (who I thought had her life under control and it was perfect and she had her house running like clockwork) admitted that she takes her sheets and towels to the launderette because the amount of laundry overwhelms her I have saved myself some time and sanity by occasionally taking my sheets and towels to the launderette and what a time saving revelation that was! Now when we are back from holiday and haven't had access to a washing machine I have unpacked and thrown the dirty laundry into a blue IKEA bag and taken it to the launderette, where they do their magic and I don't always have to iron it.
No one has said "oh Nellington you lazy thing you", they've all said much the same as I said to my not-as-together-as-I-thought friend "that's maximum concurrent activity at its very best".
What are your time saving ideas? How do you sort your laundry?