^{I am back in France, living and working in a 300 year-old chateau.  This is today's story....}

Last night as I was washing dishes, the faucet of the sink in my little pod-kitchen flew off its fastenings and I had a little fountain in my kitchen.  I shut off the water and tried to fix the faucet.  Alas, once again, l'eau partout.  Luckily for me, my neighbor Ivan is handy, and he lives next door within hollering distance of my open windows.  But it turns out that water is in my stars this weekend.

Laundry is something you kind of have to plan for here.  Because your laundry will line dry, you can only wash if the weather looks sunny.  In the winter it’s really hard, because the sun sets by 5PM, so you have to get up early to get the laundry done and hung out to dry in the cool winter sun.  And woe to you if there’s a late afternoon thunderstorm.

Today I went down to use the washing machine in the “cave,” (pronounced "caaahv").  The cave is actually Roman construction; the chateau was built on top of it.  (There are many Roman walls on the property--this property and its rocks have been used for centuries.  I’m also told there are tunnels under the chateau that were used during the French resistance in WWII.)  Although the cave looks scary on the outside, it’s bright and clean inside.

I wasn’t kidding about having to plan laundry here.  For one thing, because European washing machines conserve energy and water, they are VERY SLOW.  Plan on 90 minutes to 2 hours for your clothes to wash.  I kept hauling my butt up and down three flights of stairs and around the chateau to check on my laundry, because I wanted to hang it to dry before I left for a visit to nearby Anduze at 2:30 PM.  I put my wash in at 12:30.  At 1:40, it was still washing.  I did some chores.  At 2:00 it was still washing, so I decided it couldn’t be long before it was finished, and watched as it rolled the clothing in cycles first clockwise, then counterclockwise, repeat, repeat, repeat.

You just have to practice patience.  But it was the heat of the day and the cave was cool, so I was trying to be Zen about the whole thing.  And eventually the super fast spin arrived and the machine came to a stop.  I was a bit concerned that the laundry seemed to still be soapy.

Now I KNOW you have to wait a minute or so after the machine quits before it will unlock and let you into your laundry.  And I waited.  Really, I did.  After a reasonable period of time I tried to open the machine.  The door wouldn’t budge.  I waited more time.  It wouldn’t move.  I became perplexed.  And I made a fatal mistake.  I turned the machine off.

Turning the machine off does not open the door.  So I turned it on again.  WHOOSH! The sound of water filling the machine.  OH NO!  I shut the machine off again, knowing that my clothing was now soaked again.  I turned the machine dial to something in French that I hoped was “rinse cycle.”  WHOOSH! More water flows in.

I wait in the cool of the cave, standing the whole time, hoping that it’s a spin cycle.  It’s not.  I don’t know what it was.  But about 20 minutes later the machine stopped.  I waited, and figured out how to open the door.  But my clothes were sopping wet.

So I turned the dial to what I hoped would be “spin cycle.”  WHOOSH WHOOSH!  Even more water flows in, and I continue to stand and watch as an entire wash and rinse cycle, this time without the water conservation, occurs.  I kept telling myself that it was a Zen meditation. For some reason European washing machines lock when they begin, and the only thing you can do is stop the machine.  But you still can’t unlock it.  Or forward it to another cycle.

Suffice it to say that I got my laundry on the line at about 4PM.  When I came back from Anduze, it was still damp on the line.  It’s now 7:30, and the sun is dropping behind the mountain.  I need to take it in before the damp night air permeates it.

Well, my horoscope (Cancer the Crab) is a water sign.  So it must be in the stars.

text and images copyright voicegal 2010