autumn

Today was the last day of summer. Rain and a considerable drop in temperatures forecast from tomorrow. I spent the day outside nursing my aches and pains and my foul mood. It has been a wonderful late summer day, clear air, plenty of wasps, the kids from the Baptist family across the garden playing Pharao and Joseph, or maybe Moses. They were hysterically shouting attack and I found you! 

I just sat there most of the time, dozing and breathing and keeping it together, after a bad night. Things can only get better.

On Friday, I stood in a large crowd in the city listening to an open-air performance of Beethoven's 5th symphony.  The stage was placed right beside the cathedral, built in the 11th century as the burial place for two Roman soldiers who were beheaded by the Roman emperor of the time because they had converted to Christianity or something like that. Every religion has its martyrs and these two, Florentius and Cassius, eventually became the city's saints. Still two of the most popular boy names here.

Anyway, not my saints. Also the fact that Beethoven himself was actually born here in this city does not affect me the way it does the endless stream of mostly Asian tourists who patiently wait in long queues to document on social media that they are indeed in front of his former house or have climbed on one of the various statues of the man and purchase all the touristy stuff laid out for them, including Beethoven tea and Beethoven wine and Beethoven chocolates, also Beethoven tote bags and Beethoven socks, obviously.

While I was listening to the second movement of Beethoven's fifth, I looked up and the sky was just beautiful, all sunset pink without a cloud and a flock of pigeons circling the cathedral towers. The second movement of this symphony is one of my favourite pieces of classical music - and I am not a classical music person - and as always, it made me cry a bit. But maybe also, because I was thinking of how much my father would have enjoyed that evening, the air, the light, the birds, the music. I do miss him at times.

 

 

Tomorrow, a new washing machine will be delivered to us. This is a milestone, as always, and hopefully it will be the last washing machine in our lives. It will be washing machine number six. I am now going to write about all the washing machines we ever had, so if this is not your thing, you can stop reading here.

As background, I must mention that after years of scraping together sufficient means to feed the laundrettes during my student years, a real personal washing machine was a game changer.

The first one was a large top loader and it wasn't really ours. Its purchase had been decided after a heated debate during a housing meeting of the commune we lived in at the time and top loader because one of the communards had strong feelings regarding cats being accidentally locked inside and washed to death. It basically ran all the time because it was used by various groups and committees and campaigns. Approval for all voted for at house meetings, of course. 

The second washing machine was smuggled past the customs in that tiny African country we had moved to. Initially, we did what our neighbours did, we bashed our soapy laundry onto a concrete slab behind the house and provided there was no water stoppage on the day, spent ages rinsing it. When I heard through the grapevine that a consignment of Yugoslav washing machines was due to arrive at the port, we developed a complicated scheme whereby I posed as the girlfriend of a newly arrived Belgian diplomat we had bribed with drinks and excellent freshly grilled tuna on banana leaves to insist that a new washing machine was urgently required by me, his future diplomatic wife, with full approval of his embassy since no ordinary person would have a chance to even look at such an item without large sums changing hands. Probably everybody involved - from the customs officials to the stamp duty collector and the taxi driver and their families and friends - spotted the ruse and as expected, our standing in society was elevated by a couple of steps with much nodding and winking.

For a while, this washing machine was a major attraction and we had many visitors to sit and watch until it eventually, luckily only a few weeks before our departure, met a dramatic end when a couple of fat cockroaches electrocuted themselves in a nest they had built behind the dial switch, almost setting the house on fire. 

Number three was purchased in a mad rush on Boxing Day after our return to Dublin, the day of the year when people get up really early to avail of the xmas sale bargains, we opted for the cheapest model. When we moved to Germany a year later, number four had to be purchased as the cheapness of our Irish model did not comply with the safety stipulations of our landlord at the time. And number five was purchased to celebrate the mortgage approval when we bought the house and gave up its ghost after many useful years in the basement laundry room.

Exciting stuff, yes?