Feminist Pub 17: The Bluestocking frolics in the fells and fens of feminism

Woohoo Annie. Go you!

Yeah!!!

Nice one, Annie!

Chunky in our old house we had the drier in the bedroom cupboard. Originally because it was the only place where there was space for it, but we soon learned that it was incredibly practical too. The bed was right there for folding and sorting clothes, plus we got a lovely warm bedroom in winter. Our house-to-be has a walk-in wardrobe and I'm planning to put the drier in there.

And in other exciting news.... I GOT THE JOB!!!!

I want my washing machine/dryer upstairs. Someone I knew a few years ago had it in her walk-in wardrobe, and it was soooo convenient - no humping baskets of dirty clothes down from the bathroom, or clean clothes back up.

When I lived in Asia it was totally normal to have no hot water in the kitchen - I got completely used to washing up in cold water. Of course the water never got super cold out there, so it's a little different.

Move up, Dragonlette, I'm joining you in the outside appliances club. When I viewed this house the previous tenant had her dryer on top of the washing machine. My six month bump wouldn't allow me to do the same. So we built a lean-to in the yard for it. Drying days are chilly days with the window open for the plug.

Good morning!

It's grey and rainy here. And I'm bored. But a lot to do. Bored bored bored. What can we have to tea? Can I persuade children to eat squid?

From a gran into silver smithing, that's an interesting example of cognitive dissonance.

My gran used to be into silver smithing as a hobby. When I got married she made dh and me a silver candle holder. Then she gave me the silver cleaning cloth.

Apparently my less than enthusiastic response was due to wedding nerves. I sometimes wonder if my family know me at all. 5 seconds reflection would should have made my grandmother realize that I protested loudly against that kind of stereotyping, but it was a wedding so of course tradition won out.

I'm third generation "I can think of lots of things I'd rather do than clean"

On my father's side, they had people to do that sort of thing. On my mother's side, they were the people who would have been doing that sort of thing. So I'm only second generation.

Actually, I have some good memories of the kitchen table being covered with newspaper, and then we sat round chatting as we cleaned all the brass and silver. But it was the chatting bit which was good, rather than the cleaning, although I can make a silver pot look good. Well, I used to be able to. Can't actually remember when I last tried...

Good lord, Mother's Day and the feminist pub is discussing the merits of domestic appliances.
(Washing machine every time of course. Though vacuum necessary too because of the dog, but not as often. )

Oh, just because we live in a crappy tiny roof flat which is supposed to be a holiday home, and only has a kitchenette. We have illegally installed an oven so DH won't ask the landlady to fix the hot water (which has been missing since we moved in) in case she objects to the oven! Luckily the bathroom is right next door and that has hot water, but what a faff! The washing machine is in the cellar, too, and we're on the 2nd floor, so that does put a dampener on my laundry.

When we moved into our house we discovered that there is no plumbing in our kitchen for ANY machines. Also there doesn't appear to be a way to plumb any machines into the kitchen without getting proper tradespeople in and it costing a lot of money for basically a whole new kitchen , so we've lived with our washing machine being in the old coal shed/outside toilet for FIVE YEARS! And the washing up has to all be done by hand. We are getting a new kitchen this year, as we can just about afford one now we aren't paying for ft childcare, I can't wait to have a washing machine inside the house again, it won't freeze solid in the winter, I won't have to get wet going out to get the washing from the machine, I'm getting a dishwasher too

My great grand mother was in service during Victorian times and after that ended up in the home for single mothers before marrying my great grandfather. If I was around in that era I think I'd probably have died in a workhouse by now!

I think I'm on the side of the washing machine in terms of time saved.

Annie, I saw that AIBU post. I was also shocked that so many people seem to think it's OK. I would be furious if that happened to me, it's such a disrespectful thing to do. I try to avoid posting in AIBU as I rarely have the patience for it.

I'm off on holiday tomorrow! I'll probably still post but I'll be on holiday.

I have discovered in the last two weeks that few LARGE loads of laundry are better. If I didn't have a washing machine or a hoover I'd have to have serious lackeys (I did that when I lived overseas, though).

Have any of you seen this?

Mother's Day/Mothering Sunday can be pretty awful for those who either don't get on with or have lost their own mothers, or who would love to BE a mother but can't.

I'm not a huge fan but did get rather a large bar of chocolate today!

I like to think I would have been a fairly standard Victorian ie fairly grubby

I'm third generation "I can think of lots of things I'd rather do than clean" and I like to think that if the sentiments of previous female generations of my family were recorded they'd concur. Other things to be getting on with.

*Obviously the rugs would still need to be beaten...

I can definitely appreciate that r.e. the washing machine - washing clothes by hand takes so. Bloody. Long.

R.e. its invention having more of an impact than the vacuum cleaner - could that partly be because before the vacuum cleaner was invented, you didn't have wall-to-wall carpets in many houses but wood / brick with rugs? Whereas if vacuum cleaners sudenly stopped working now we'd have a lot more carpets to clean than our ancestors might have done. But people have always had clothes!

Obviously those would still need to be beaten but I imagine that the time saved between beating and vacuuming wasn't anywhere near as big as the time saved between handwashing all your clothes and putting them in the machine.

I would have been an awful Victorian.

We've just moved house and the water connections in the kitchen were only set up for one machine. We plumbed the washing machine in initially, but after a week or so of doing dishes by hand a few times a day (we're both home full time atm so the dishes were stacking up) and only doing a few loads of laundry, DH made the very salient point that we would benefit far more from plumbing the dishwasher in instead.

So we did. Happy days! I hate washing dishes.

We had another week of building up lots of dirty laundry, then DH bought some extension hoses and we ran them across the kitchen and into the sink when a load needed doing. This plan also results in a minor flood the first time we tried and the pipes fell out of the sink, but the floor needed a clean anyway, so no harm done.

Now we have attractive extension pipes running along around the outside of the kitchen, but at least it's all plumbed in, no pipes need to be dangled in sinks and we can wash clothes and dishes all at the same time. First world luxury, I tell ya!

I do find ironing quite satisfying, getting rid of all the wrinkles and making everything smooth. (Not that satisfying that I am going to be taking in laundry, before you all bundle up yours.)

Bertie how come you don't have hot water in the kitchen? I couldn't cope, I hate washing up at the best of times!

I love laundry too. Ironing and fabric softener and folding clothes and putting them away.

I don't do it as often as I should, but I love it when I do. One of the only genuinely enjoyable bits of housework IMO.

I also don't mind washing up - you get to stick your hands in a lovely warm tub of water for ages :) - but I don't like it in practice because the sink is crap so water invariably splashes down my front, my arms are sticks so I can't roll sleeves up reliably and the ends get wet which gives me rage, the drying rack is sadly not a conveyer belt of magic drying and gets full, and the dishes are too greasy and make the water dirty after washing about four things, so I have to keep stopping to refill the bowl, which takes forever because we also don't have hot water in the kitchen.

So I leave it to DH. He gets around the grease problem by using far too much soap and pretending the water is not greasy, which leaves the dishes with a residue of greasy soap. I pretend not to notice because it gets me off the hook of doing it.

I much prefer my washing machine to the hoover, althought I rarely use either of them. Dp does the laundry on his day off, and dd1 does the hoovering (and cleans the kitchen and bathroom once a week) for pocket money. I don't think I actually do very much housework at all, if dp and dd1 haven't done it I just shut the room I don't want to look at and pretend it isn't there .