Dashing away with the smoothing iron

There have been some comments on ironing. One of my earliest childhood memories is of playing on the kitchen floor while my mother was ironing. She never let laundry sit around in the ironing basket. Things were ironed the day they were washed and then into the airing cupboard. (She also had a contraption predating tumble dryers, called a flatley - a heated box with hanging rails.) The smell of hot, slightly damp cotton is the smell of my childhood. On Sunday evenings my father would press his suit with a hot iron and a damp cloth. I never saw him iron anything else until my mother became ill. Now we tease him for ironing socks. "Didn't your mother iron socks?", he asks us. His shirts were to be folded. I loathed trying to fold them so they were all the same size in a drawer. I only learnt the easiest order to iron shirts in from a friend a few years ago - collar, yoke, sleeves, body. I loathed ironing when I was married. I gave up wearing linen and cotton and bought clothes that didn't need to be ironed. I think ironing, like many other domestic tasks, was laden with resentment of all the things I was doing and he was not. Now I enjoy many household tasks as I'm doing them for myself. And I love the feel of ironed cotton pillowcases.

Comments

[shauny]

sock ironing! how sweet :) my grandmother irons her undies which i find quite bizarre...

i've pretty much made my wardrobe entirely iron-free, most other things i figure the creases will fall out if i wear it for long enough.

(have to say again your blog is brilliant, i love your writing and reading about canberra just makes it all the better :)

[anne]

Did your mum have one of those free standing boilers which filled the kitchen with steam and occasionally the floor with suds?

I am glad you have started to wear linen and cotton again - if the ironing got too much couldn't you use an ironing service?

And hello to Shauny - I am longing for a Scottish fish supper.

Anne