This post is not about vegetables and their preparation, it’s about drying greens.
The subject popped into my mind when a DIY expert (not), friend told me he’d had a struggle with his Sheila Maid. Having so recently been at the Pepys exhibition in Greenwich I had visions of him having an agreeable tussle with an Australian au pair. I have now learnt that a Sheila Maid is this.
Now you know too. But, frankly, it is a small-scale, pathetic way to tackle clothes drying, simply exposing its owner to ridicule for having such a paucity of washing to dry.
What is required is a drying green. It should be about the size of two tennis courts and walled-in so that the laundry is hidden – it can look a little unsightly. If for some reason you were to decide to out-source your laundry the drying green would, in fact, be ideal as a tennis court. Alternatively, my mother used the one at Barmeath as a hen run, the walls keeping the foxes out and the hens in. My brother, for the same reason, keeps pheasants there.
But if you decide to throw in the towel, as it were, and buy a fridge freezer, what will you use your ice house for?
I thought Barmeath was in Ireland? How did you ever have dry clothes. Much better as a rearing pen.