Spectacular Weather

The weather has been spectacular these last few days, more perfect weather I don't believe you would get anywhere. The sparkling sunshine was dazzling me all morning. The leaves in the garden sparkled with the light shining down on them.

I've been listening to Amy Winehouse, a more perfect singer is hard to find, such a talent. I heard Tony Bennett say she was comparable to Ella Fitzgerald, or Dinah Washington. Her voice was mesmerising me all morning

At lunch time, I suddenly (not quite like a bolt of lightning, or a slap to the face, but it came to me at that point, rather than earlier in the day, rather than in the morning, when it wouldn't have been so pressing, when it would have been more convenient) thought I should get some washing done and get it outside in the perfect weather so it will dry and be done and finished with before dusk.

I thought of my mother and how she used to say such things on the weekend. "I've got to get the washing out early, so it dries and I can take it in before tea time."

I'd run and hide, well, not so much leave the premises as suddenly (there is that word again?) become busy so I didn't have to hang the wet clothes from the wicker laundry basket onto the rotary clothesline, seemingly marooned in the middle of the quarter ache block of a back yard, just some square concrete stepping stones to the base of the wretched thing. I could not imagine anything more boring than hanging clothes, ah the naivety of the young with their life stretched out before them, with so many boring bits yet to be discovered. I’d head to my room and close the door, maybe, I’d have a Matchbox Car emergency. Go for a bike ride. Run in next door to Mrs Smith for a visit, hang out with her in her antique kitchen, with its broken lino floor tiles, and its funny mantel piece over the stove. Something. Abandon ship. I hated hanging out the washing, it used to make me so cross when my mother asked me. I don't really know why now? I guess, I was just being a kid. It was nearly as bad as the gritted-teeth agony of washing up the dishes in the evening when I could have been watching TV, although a kitchen remodel, early in the peace, and the instillation of a shiny gold coloured dishwasher that matched the new kitchen cupboards took that particular torture out of the equation.