I have written before about the difficulty of washing our thicker (9 tog) double duvet, which I like to do each summer. Cyprus is a dusty environment, and cats sleep on our bed.. and I've read all kinds of unpleasant articles about dust mites, and the like.
Although our single duvets, and our thin (4.5 tog) double one will go, one at a time, in our washing machine, there is no way that the thick one will fit. At our old house I would struggle to wash it in the bath, which was near the back door, and then lug it outside to the line. No fun at all. At this house, our bath is upstairs, but we do have an outside sink by the washing line.. however the sink is not big enough to take the duvet. So, if anything, it's even more difficult to wash.
However.. this year, a friend mentioned that she had discovered that a double duvet would fit nicely in one of the washing machines at the Larnaka Marina. Since Richard is a member there, we decided to try it ourselves. Of course, being good at leaving things until the last moment, we had not got around to doing this during the summer when it would have made the most sense.
Last week, when the weather turned chilly, I found myself feeling extremely cold at night under the thin duvet. So, finally, on Sunday, we decided to take the duvet to the marina. We even remembered to take some washing powder with us.
Unfortunately, we had not realised that it would not take coins. Richard called the friend who had told us about it, and she told us that we would need to buy a token at the office. But the office is closed over the weekend.
So we came home, and found a single quilt which I have not yet washed this year, and placed it, without a cover, over our light-weight (covered) duvet, for Sunday night. Cleo was happy:
I was too, as it was very cosy, and I slept well.
Richard had the day off on Monday (yesterday). So, mid-morning, we returned to the marina. Just before leaving ,I wondered aloud how we would get the duvet back when it was still wet... and we picked up a large black bin liner. I was rather glad to have remembered that.
This time - after a brief hiatus when we were given the token for a different machine - we managed to get it working. Even with this big machine, the duvet only JUST fit inside:
We went for a walk while we waited for it; the cycle lasted about an hour. It wouldn't quite fit in the bin liner when it was done, but most of it did. We sat it in the back seat of the car:
I wanted to put a seat-belt on it but Richard thought (correctly) that it would be fine.
Rather than lugging it up the stairs - it was still fairly heavy, despite a powerful spin - we hung it out downstairs on our guest flat washing line:
Despite it being a sunny day with a little breeze, it gets dark around 5.00pm now, and the duvet was not fully dry by then. I did manage to flip it over onto another line to allow the other side to dry, but we decided to leave it out overnight and keep the same arrangement with the added single quilt.
This afternoon, about 4.00, I went down to check again. This time, the duvet felt perfectly dry, so I bundled it up in my arms and brought it upstairs. I was going to put a cover on it, and put it on our bed, but this is what I saw:
I didn't have the heart to disturb them. Nor, if I am honest, the energy to try and fight with a clean duvet cover. Wednesday is the morning when I usually change the bedding anyway, so I put the sparkling clean duvet in Tim's room with the door closed... the temporary arrangement will stay in place for another night.
1 comment:
There's a nice eco-laundry place here in Paphos that would do it for I think 10 euros. I could get the name for them off of my mother in law if you'd like ;)
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