The Trials and Tribulations of the Tasmanian Clothesline

I don't know about you guys, but we only have a washing machine here, so we have to hang our clothes to dry. Now, there are numerous of reasons for hanging your clothes on the line: less electricity used by dryer appliances, the fresh clean smell of air dried laundry (and no need for expensive and overly perfumed dryer sheets), no static electricity involved, and the sun acts a natural disinfectant of a sort. I'm sure everyone has other reasons for choosing to line dry their clothes. Those are certainly mine. 

However, I live in Tasmania. Normally that would be a proud statement, but they have a saying here: "If you don't like the weather, wait 20 minutes".

For the line dryer, that's a MAJOR pain in the rear. 


I am forever looking at the sky thinking "Hm, clouds... do I risk the washing, or should I wait for it to clear?"


This can go one of several ways: 

-The sky stays cloudy, and I decide not to wash, and then the weather is bad for the rest of the week/end. 
-The sky clears, I do the washing, and the moment the machine starts the final spin cycle, the clouds come back and stay in for the day, extending their drying time. 
-It'll be breezy in the moment I decide to start the machine (the ideal condition) and then go utterly still by the time I get everything hung out, and be that way for the rest of the day, regardless of whether or not it's sunny.
-It'll be brilliantly sunny outside, I hang the washing, it stays brilliantly sunny for an hour, then the clouds blow in in an instant and it pours down rain, soaking my laundry if I don't catch it in time.


My world is filled with cries of frustration over the weather! Winter is simply the worst time to have to dry laundry, especially since we're trying to have key items clean, dry, folded and packed for our trip to California, coming up in a week.

I can't wait for summer; the best drying weather is when the sun is blazing, the wind blowing, and the paving stoves under the clothesline are baking hot and radiating that heat upwards into the clothes. They will usually dry in the few hours then.


Until then though, I will just have to persevere through the funky weather. :P