Sunday 30th December

We don’t have a washing machine here in Eymet, well not yet.  And actually I am not sure we will ever get one as I have discovered the Laverie.  They are quite popular still in France, where the idea of communality is a bit stronger than in England where only the poor, single and sad go to the Launderette.  Here it is quite acceptable to wash your clothes ‘en flagrante’.  In the summer it is so warm it is easier to wash and rinse the few clothes you wear in the sink and dry them in an hour or two out the back but in the winter I am using the Laverie.

The instructions are thankfully in English as well as French.  Conversational French I can do, but anything technical tends to flummox me a bit.  Anyway, once you have worked it out it is quite simple; so clothes in, powder in, select 2 for coloureds press start and away we go.  The clothes on their boring cycles round and round and I to the Café de Paris for a Grand Café au Lait, and a bit of blogging, hopefully to return to all my clothes washed and clean, and not cold and soapy and still dirty.

But sitting here in the late afternoon sunshine, temperature about 13 or 14C, a nice cup of coffee ( and maybe a biere in a minute or two) by my side and free wireless internet – I will volunteer to do the washing any day.

PS – I have always looked out for unusual and witty shop names, no more so than a Laundromat last summer in France with a huge plastic Bugs Bunny outside.  The name of course was Tex Laverie.