Out of the way

I am not much given to shopping for clothing. My usual pattern is to go to some second-hand shop (they used to be op shops, but somehow they got corporatised...) and find a bunch of shirts of plain colours. Trousers and jeans are harder to get - I buy them new from time to time. Socks and undies I tend to buy when I need to replace them (by my definition. a few holes never hurt anyone much...), in the supermarket or market.

I do own a suit - actually several, including the fixin's of a proper dinner suit (or tuxedo, for those who speak someone else's English and use words like fixin's). I don't buy them often. I also work for a company that makes some number of promotional t-shirts, so I am often wearing those to events. (It's a pity they don't make promotional heavy cotton or linen shirts with two breaast pockets, because I far prefer wearing those to t-shirts, but you can't have everything And they did make some promotional undies - although I am less likely to be showing those off, I think).

But travelling means that I tend to be restricted to carrying a small amount of stuff. Once I add a bottle of wine and a book (or two), some assorted work junk, and the occasional odd thing that gets into my suitcase, I have a limited wardrobe at any one time. And often it has to cover being in a hot summer, a cold winter, a formal meeting, and the dream that I will relax on teh beach or in the bush somewhere. (OK, that last is all too often just a fantasy, but it helps my sanity to indulge myself).

Which means there is not a lot of anything, and so the perennial preoccupation is washing clothes. By the time a week has gone by I either need to have washed almost everything already and be looking again, or have turned it all inside out, think about wat can be changed to go back-to-front as well, and get used to people all trying to squeeze into the other end of the bus.

Laundromats are fine, if I don't have to be at work, or don't mind shifting my dinner to bedtime, and have a large handful of change. And there are places without them. Most of the developing world seems not to have them, but instead has people who will take your washing away and bring it back clean in a day or two for a reasonable fee. Which is good, if I have a day or two to wait, but typically that means half my clothes are away at any one time.

Hotel rooms tend to have one very useful feature - a hair dryer. Washng things in the shower or basin is easy enough, it is drying them that is the real problem when I am moving. And this is where the hair dryer is my friend. Heat them up when wet, wrap them in a towel unless there is enough air moving around to make that a bad idea, hang them up, and in the morning they will be mostly dry. Another blast with the hair dryer will do most things, and a heavy shirt that is warm and very slightly damp wil dry off soon enough if put on warm. This is good, because in the Western world hotels seem to have the idea that anyne who does laundry on the road is a millionaire, and doesn't mind paying the cost of the clothing in order to have it cleaned a couple of times.

But the best of all is to visit people with a washing machine. Much as I love the chance to cook a proper meal in a kitchen, and use the network at someone's house, or sit in teir garden, of all the "facilities" that you get staying in someone's house rather than the typical hotel, the one that I appreciate most is generally the washing machine. (No, it doesn't compare with the company of friends... although sometimes people are happier to be friends after offering me this paticular kind of hospitality).

But even more than washing, I was reminded this week of the fragile threads on which dignity can hang. Getting dressed in a hurry (I was running late on the way to the airport), I pulled on my trousers, did them up, and thought no more of it. Until, arriving at the airport, I realised that in fact the fly zipper was completely broken, and nothing would hold it shut. Going from place to place, there are times when there is not much you can do about repairing an instant problem like that. And this was one such. A day later (having sat through various flights, wandered various airports and decided that it was warm enough for shorts really, despite everyone else in Getafe leaning more towards the winter coat) I got new pants. And many things, including a broken fly zipper, can be fixed with a bit of time and the right tools.

Most of these things can be dealt with. If I thought clothes were more fun, or more interesting as an investment, maybe I would find the problems smaller. But somehow the one time clothing really gets my attention is the point where dignity itself starts looing threadbare - 'when your pants begin to go'.