Another fun Fact you Might not Know About me #10

I like to peg my clothes on the line with matching coloured pegs...

I remember when I was younger I would only colour-coordinate with the clothes I was hanging up, too - blue pegs for blue clothes, green for green, etc. - but then again, my Mother had a lot of pegs in a lot of colours...

In Australia most of us grew up with a "Hills Hoist", a clothes line which was mounted on a central column with adjustable height... the clothes could be hung by rotating the line to where the person standing had their clothes basket at hand, and in order to avoid clothes being blown against the extension of the column (which is heavily greased in order to keep it moving...) you would hang small, usually personal items such as knickers, socks, handkerchiefs cleaning cloths, then slightly longer larger items on each successive line. Sheets and large items went on the very outside...

Now that I live in the UK I have a type of clothes line which is as old as the concept of hanging your laundry out in the wind & sunshine to dry - a single, long length of nylon cord which you hang your things on and then use extendible props to raise them to gain maximum wind and sunshine! I first learned how to use one of these from playing the character of Sarah Harding in the play, "The Accrington Pals" set in 1915... Little did I know I'd be using one for real a few years later!

Now, as always, I tend to grab 2 matching pegs for each garment, 4 for sheets, 3 for towels, and one for socks (which means you can use up the left-overs!) I've discovered that folk often dry their personal items, such as knickers and bras, inside the house, rather than on display to any neighbours who might be able to peer into your back garden... This was never a problem with the Hills Hoist as the "unmentionables" were on the inner part of the line and obscured by laundry hanging on the outer lines...

I couldn't write about the Hill's Hoist without mentioning it was also the source of many games where we'd pretend to fly!! I can still hear my mother shouting from the back door that we'd ruin the balance of the clothes line... which we still did, of course... And yes, the clothes line was a bit wonky afterwards... But it was so much fun swinging around and around on it!

And, of course, I still match my pegs by colour!