chinese laundry

we have had a fair bit of rain of late. In fact pretty much from the day Linda and Celia arrived it has been raining. So, with clean clothes running out the girls requested to do some washing. No problem, or so I thought. With jokes being made about how the house would look like a chinese laundry, I set about explaining to Celia how to use the washing machine, although it would not be a good idea to wash her woollen jumper in it. So far so good, the clothes got washing machined and hung out on the clothes horse in front of the heater, and the jumpers handwashed... all was going well in the Chinese Laundry.

Until, mid phonecall to the chemist to find out whether they had Lanolin, Australian made of course (which they didn't), I heard a yelp from the loungeroom.

Apparently, whilst I was getting the number for the chemist, Celia had asked about rinsing her jumper and B had told her that it could be put in the washing machine on the rinse cycle (such a male suggestion). So into the washing machine went the two jumpers, however our washing machine drains to the basin and the plug was not removed following the handwashing process. You can see where this was heading, we had a flooded laundry, and of course our laundry doesn't have a floor drain, so..... a dozen towels later the problem was under control. That is until a guilty B, decided that washing the towels might be a good idea. Let me remind you it is wet here, I don't like the clothesdryer - for environmental reasons, and it is now 10pm at night. I was not aware of the towel washing decision, until you guessed it the water was flowing into the loungeroom, someone (uhm one of our guests) had left a sponge in the sink, which had a plug effect and we were going for a repeat of the earlier flooding. More towels were required ....our place really does look like a Chinese Laundry.