Bears in the wash-house

Yesterday and today I've been cleaning the wash-house. This involves moving the fridge and freezer, which are on a kind of raised platform. That involves jiggling them forward onto a breeze block and a lump of eucalyptus wood that are about the right height so that I can get behind them and clean what was underneath which is usually a lot of dust and cobwebs and leaves and small twigs. The platform, and another even higher one on the other side where the washing-machine sits, is necessary because the floor slopes down from the edges of the wash-house to a drain in the middle. This does mean that if the washing-machine leaks and when I want to defrost the freezer, I don't have to worry about catching water. It can trickle away across the concrete floor and not be a problem. Unfortunately, the lack of a damp course in the walls of this ancient wet room means that mould grows so the cleaning involves mould killer, bleach and a scrubbing brush, especially as I don't do it very often – probably averaging about once every three years at the moment, about as often as I really thoroughly clean out the garden shed. When trying to imagine the Boggy Brae wash-house, don't think sparkling modern utility room, think very old, usually messy, stone shed.

Anyway, to get to the point. I found some bears. This one, made of some stony, plastery conglomerate, I found on the beach some years ago. He has been sitting in a cobwebby corner of the wash-house. He got a brush up yesterday. Today I found his friend so now they are together.

Beach bear and plastic bear

At the time I photographed them they were making sure I'd hung up all the gardening gloves and hats and ear warmers. Now they have a been allotted the corner of one of the steps that lead up into the kitchen from the old wash'us.