Olde Washerwoman

My job has some great perks. One is definitely the opportunity to, every so often, get out of the office and see the country. Somehow it's worked out that it's always lovely and warm and there's often ice cream or a cream donut involved. Sometimes I get to spend the night somewhere too, which is great because with a long distance boyfriend and cat there's no real reason to spend the night in my own bed.

I spent last night in Raglan, which is absolutely beautiful. I was very excited as I'd never been there before, and was very much looking forward to relaxing in the beachy atmosphere. So after a big day trekking out on farms I thought I'd have a quick shower at the hotel before starting on my meandering. The quick shower turned into half an hour as the water pressure was excellent, and who doesn't love good water pressure? Unfortunately, unbeknownst (good word!!) to me, the shower drain was blocked. Thirty minutes of showering equates to quite a lot of water apparently. I know this because I stepped out of the shower into a bathroom wide puddle up to my ankles. The bathmat was actually floating.

I panicked and spent who knows how long trying to soak all the water up with towels and then wringing them out, and repeating. All naked as the day I was born, bar the sole dry towel wrapped around my hair (why around my hair and not my body is a mystery to me too). I tried to bail some of the water out using the closest thing I could find to a bucket, the bathroom bin. Unfortunately this was metal and not sealed properly, so, as you might expect the water flowed right through and I may as well have used a sieve. When I had soaked up enough water to have a few areas only slippery rather than below water, I opened the door to find that the bathroom was not the only room I had flooded.

Artist's impression of my situation.

The whole passageway and leading down the stairs was soaking wet. Squelchy puddles formed around my feet as I gingerly stepped onto the carpet. So, again, still naked for some reason, I continued to try and soak up more water with the already soaking wet towels. I laid down all the towels I had access to onto the puddles - bathmat, hand towel, tea towel, even the dishcloth - squelched up and down on them and then wrung them out over the sink as the shower was completely blocked at this stage. And I did this for hours.At one point I thought maybe using the hairdryer on a spot while I waited for the towels to absorb more water somehow was a good idea, but it was just an excuse to give my poor little body a break. Office work does not cut you out for the serious business of towel-wringing!!

Eventually, once I'd gotten dressed, the owner arrived and unclogged the drain and gave me a whole bunch of dry towels to form a path across the carpet marsh, as well as a fresh towel should I work up the courage for another shower. She looked, frankly, baffled that I had been squelching and wringing towels for hours. This makes me suspect I may have been crazy to do so. Oh well.

So much for my relaxing afternoon spent walking around the beautiful harbour and beaches, or at least perusing the craft shops. The only energy I could muster after my afternoon was to drag myself out for pizza, ginger beer and chocolate, come back to get into my pyjamas and watch several episodes of Doctor Who.

Blatant product placement. Feel free to contact me if you're from L&P, Whittakers or Schweppes and wish to reimburse me :)

I have gained, from this experience, immense respect for the incredible strength obviously possessed by ye olde washerwomen, as well as a new found appreciation and gratitude for whoever invented the washing machine. Good on ya mate. And now, I go to curl up my poor tired, aching body and red blistered hands in bed to dream of a man in a blue box.