Laundry, lots and lots of laundry

I thought we were always touching laundry baskets and folding clothes when we lived in Canada but that was nothing - good grief. Here in PV it's the daily clothing, sheets and bathroom towels that always seem to be changed and washed when compared to Vancouver living. Sheets need to be changed every three days at the longest. Between sweating, scratching the odd bug bite in the middle night, bug spray and suntan lotion they really don't stay fresh and clean for very long. Bath towels take forever to dry. The tropics are not the place to have fluffy thick plush towels - the thinner the better so they can dry quickly. If moisture sits around on towels and clothing it starts to get that musty smell right away. Again three days at the most. We still have the typical daily kitchen laundry items with the tea towels, scrubbies and dish cloths as those are only used for one day and some days they are changed several times.

But, please don't get us wrong about this. The few extra loads of laundry we wash every month are definitely worth living in 30 degrees C weather on a year round basis. Our daily clothing that wear are smaller (shorts and tank tops) but there seems to be a lot more items - that's really what we're saying here.

During the cooler winter months we would both change our clothing at least twice a day. In the summer months, if we run errands during the day, three changes has been the norm so we can stay somewhat comfortable. And on hot days we get yet another extra change in. Sometimes it's hard to get out of our shirts / bras as they really cling when the humidity kicks in. In Canada we used to be able to wear the same set of jammies around the house for two or three days in a row – slip them on again after coming home from work each day so we can relax. Yeah, not so much anymore. It seems to be a bit of a challenge to stay somewhat cool and fresh if we have been out and about on a warm day. When we have a cool shower after our afternoon swim we put on fresh clothes - once it comes off, it stays off...and heads straight to the washing machine.

And now we seem to have to use more soap to get that freshness we like. We like the convenience of laundry soap pods as we can just toss one into the machine with no measuring or mess. For those really dirty jobs we use a scoop of our trusty Oxy clean. In the summer months we have found for every load we use a scoop of Oxy clean plus two soap pods. This seems to do the trick.

Typically Jan gets the washing machine started each morning as I hop into the shower – part of our daily routine. Usually we wash one load of laundry every day as it helps us to keep ahead of a “pile-up”. After our errands are done, and we are back home and have had lunch, I usually go for a short siesta and Jan usually has the laundry folded before I get up again. He hates folding the sheets so he “saves” them for me. I actually prefer that as I have seen him try to fold a fitted sheet...OMG.

I think it's going to be very different when we are in Barbados as we understand that our new apartment doesn't have a washer / dryer. We don't even know if it has space for one so we will either have to pay to have the laundry done by administration staff at $20 bds / $13 cdn for a “load”, or find a laundromat close to our new home, and, we can't seem to nail that down via internet as yet...

We have a stacking washer / dryer unit here in PV and we have come to enjoy its service very much. I think Jan and I will figure out a way for us to install a nice shiny unit in our new place once we find out more information. I can't imagine that either of us will put up with washing our clothes by hand and hang them outside to dry....