Dust

It was a few years ago now, that someone was genuinely surprised to learn that I still hang my washing out to dry on a washing line in the garden. She gave the impression that this was the sort of quaint custom that you would only see in an artfully reconstructed medieval village - and what kind of sad sack was I, anyway, that I didn't have a tumble dryer?

The kind of sad sack that has a large garden and an eye on her electricity bills, that's who. And someone who would rather her clean clothes smelled of fresh air and garden than "Hint of gardenia".

It struck me today that I am a throwback in another respect as well - I still shake my dusters out of the window. When I was a girl (and yes, it was quite a long time ago, but not that long) it wasn't at all unusual to see a window opened and a hand emerge to vigorously shake a duster, then the window close again. But I can't remember the last time I saw it.

What do people do nowadays? Don't they have dust in their homes? I have thick layers of velvety dust in all sorts of places and occasionally (not very often, I admit) I actually want to get rid of it. Does a social stigma attach to people whose homes are dusty? Is it actually shameful to admit to wielding a duster? What do people do with their dust?

Don't they shake their mats either? (That's something else I haven't seen for a long time).

Does everyone else wipe their surfaces with speciual cloths that they throw away afterwards? Are these the same people who have their rooms "fragranced" with a ghastly plug-in artificial scent rather than ever open the windows?

What's the world coming to?