Ultimate luxury

People can rave on as much as they like about dining in posh restaurants, jetting around from one 5-star hotel to the next, playing golf in nice places with Nice People, spending an evening at the opera, etc. I still consider that one of the most sublime luxuries that a human being can relish consists of hanging out your washing on a warm day, and watching it dry in the breeze.

I don't know when exactly it was that the Creator, after a week of intense activity, did his washing. Maybe he got Eve to do the dirty work… starting a time-honored tradition. I'm sure that the first time God's white robes fluttered in a wind whipped up by the Holy Spirit must have been one of the most fulfilling instants of Creation.

I don't know whether the Creator and his work crew wore socks and underpants, but they're best handled a little differently. I mean to say, it's a bit tedious having to peg up every item on the clothes line.

I've got into the habit of using this high-tech device incorporating a big boulder to counteract any excess of zeal on the part of the Holy Spirit.

Naturally, one doesn't simply wait for the clothes to dry. Ideally, you should seek to participate in this process, in the same way that you might participate, say, in a great sports match, or even a religious ceremony. The most sensitive souls can actually feel the clothes absorbing profoundly the energy of the Sun and the wind, and getting dryer and dryer…

POST-SCRIPTUM: Certain individuals have got into the habit of devoting less time to washing clothes than, say, to writing blogs, or other superficial activities. These lucky people have the pleasure of amassing such a big pile of dirty stuff that they can experience the pleasure of two or three successive clothes-washing and clothes-drying sessions. Just ask my daughter… Needless to say, this is not a good approach in prolonged periods of rain, hail, snow or hurricanes. Incidentally, over the last few months, while I've been spending a lot of time outdoors working on my pergola, flower garden and stone staircase, dirty clothes have become a fundamental element of my daily lifestyle. That's to say, as soon as I get out of bed, I don a pair of green overalls (in fact, those that are seen in the center of my first photo) and a pair of boots that are sometimes caked in a film of dry mud. I wouldn't put on such clothes, of course, if I intended to drive into town. On the other hand, clothes of that kind have never prevented me from working at the computer. And the fact that I'm dressed like that means that I can get up from my computer desk, whenever I feel so inclined, and wander outside to start digging up the earth, removing weeds, mixing concrete, slicing up stone slabs with a disc cutter, or what have you. To take advantage of this approach, it's largely a matter of persuading yourself that you feel good and comfortable in dirty clothes, and ready for action. Then, the day that you find yourself stepping into overalls that are freshly washed, with an aroma of lavender, is a little like the start of the Renaissance in 15th-century Italy, or the first day of spring. As my blog title indicates, the general theme of this article is sheer luxury!