The outlet pipe for the washing machine hangs over its side almost as if it’s had enough. Hanging there exhausted and tired, but it delivers another surge of suds with poise, the machine cycles through another rinse, spinning at the top of its range, whizzing and humming like a CD player spinning a CD, extracting as much moisture as it can through centrifugal force. It rocks and rattles a bit as the load is uneven and stops.

I wait with plastic basket- lighter than air at this stage, full of latticed white holes where the daylight peeks through. The clothes are still heavy with sopped moisture but free of soapy scum, I drag out jeans and Tees and undies and some of them slip into the wash basin and clang metallically. The basket fills and I reach for the buttery plug and begin to fill the sink with water – it tinkles in the empty bottom, metallic rain seems to explode, this will be for the new shirt I just bought- I don’t want the colours to run into the other clothes. I lug down the 2 kilo pack of soap powder, it seems to weigh as much as my head as I dig in the scoop, the mixed blue grains throw up a shower of perfume in lemon and autumn mist. They sprinkle unevenly through the trough and dissolve.

I plunge in the shirt and my hands feel the greasy pull of the sudsy soap. I want to rinse as soon as possible, but know I need to run this through at least once. A sort of steamy pungent smell seems to rise – have I made the water too hot? Not if I can dip in my hand I rationalise. . I release the plug and run cold water over the item until I feel no more of the sudsy grease. Satisfied I throw it into the washing machine and set it to spin a for a minute.