Washing the dishes

A couple of months back, the dishwasher completed its last cycle in a cloud of smoke, with a tremendous bang that blew all the electrical circuits in the house. Since then I have been washing the dishes by hand, the old-fashioned way. I hate housework of any kind, but usually when I'm doing it, I can distract myself by thinking about how Sarah would have done her housework (and how much she would have appreciated modern labour-saving devices - I especially think this when I'm up to my elbows in hot soapy water and really missing the dishwasher!)

Oddly enough, although some of the books I have about our pioneer women go into extensive detail about washing clothes - a process that seems to have taken up three days of every week - they are strangely silent about washing dishes. Is the assumption that the process isn't that much different to hand-washing dishes today? There are some differences - I have a plumbed sink with a drain, which Sarah wouldn't have had in the early days. My hot water comes from the tap - I don't have to boil great pots of it on the stove. My soap suds come courtesy of a bottle of environmentally-friendly dishwashing liquid - not sure what Sarah would have used. Washing soda? Home-made bar soap, like the Sunlight bars my Mum still uses for the dishes? No fancy pot scrubbers for Sarah, either, or a plastic dish-brush, or rubber gloves.

But many things are still the same :

• the way the steam from the hot water sets off your sinuses and you end up sniffing because your hands are wet and you can't blow your nose;
• the way you look out the kitchen window and notice things - like the roses need dead-heading and there's a tui perched on the flax eating seeds;
• the way you always get interrupted - me : the phone rings, the cat comes in with a bird that it wants to disembowel under the dining table; Sarah - kids crying or fighting, someone comes to the door, husband wants to know where his socks are
• the way you think about the dishes while you're scrubbing away at them - Mum gave me these plates; those old silver forks came from my grandmother; that chip in a favourite bowl happened when the kids were scuffling over a wish-bone;
• the way you think about the meal you cooked and put on the plates - what you could have done differently; what you might try next time to please a fussy eater or use up something that's getting close to its best-by date...

I still think Sarah would have wanted a dishwasher......