Launderettes

Sook we live at the General then in the Westlands for 4 years - off Beresford Crescent. Yes people were so friendly and we made so many friends, many still friends to this day.

I just want my bedding/towels washed ,not dried or folded.I like to see it blowing on the line. A neighbour runs a cleaning/ironing service but it works out very expensive.

I have a local launderette here in Manchester - there are still quite a lot of them because of the high students population and lots of flats. I use it for duvets, but also for bedding and towels if we get a rainy summer. I reckon it's cheaper than using my own tumble dryer. I usually have a service wash which means bundling it up into a bag with your name on it and I have also learned to put a list of contents with it. It all comes back beautifully folded

We still have a Chinese Laundry near to us a lovely family who have been in business for year's I would love to know how they manage to iron those fitted sheets with out having all the corners crumpled,they can even arrange delivery or pick up if you are house bound and on the next block of shop's further down the Road is an ironing service which is very popular with the single men who live in the area.

Ana it's because I'm middleclass

Greatnan, this was a line of washing machines at the side of the street and there were people using them.

I wish I had known where the launderettes were, when we had the builders in we were driving two hours to our other home to do the laundery. Doh, I should have googled then.

I have always lived near a launderette! I once lived very near where I worked and sitting watching your smalls go round with a few of the kids & parents from the class you teach for company is a bit weird!

We have one in the 'village' just a few minutes walk from my 'new' house We have made good use of the local one when the building work was happening and for the duvets etc. Occasionally I have taken stuff to dry too as do not have a dryer.

The one near the old house is now a charity shop!

Well I am surprised, have just googled my area and found there are 5 launderettes within reasonable travelling distance. Haven't used one since I was a child and Mum used to send me with the wool blankets because they were too thick for our mangle.

Dont have much choice here!

Dry cleaners do duvets, yes - but somehow I'd rather have mine washed...

Our laundrette has closed.

Our dry cleaner does duvets.

grannya that made me

granjura for the last 27 years I've lived in a small village just outside Nantwich. Newcastle under Lyme is a 20 minute drive by car. I remember you mentioning Mr Club in a previous post . I find Newcastle folk very pleasant and friendly.

I have today taken the duvet and four pillows from our bed round to the nearby laundrette and will pick them up tomorrow. All the other duvets and pillows were washed and dried a few weeks ago. One set of stuff has to go on our bed until Wednesday when we depart from home but I don't think it will be horribly smelly and disgusting when it has been shipped to the other side of the world after such a short period of use. At least, I hope not.

You mean you have a service wash, kitty? There's posh.....

Our nearest town, about 3 miles away, is a university town so we have access to quite a few. I take my winter duvet there when I change it and the summer one in the autumn. It always comes back in a lovely bag ready to store.

Knowing my habit of losing things, I constantly worry that I won't remember to pick it up and will then upturn the house looking for it.

I was really glad of campsite laundrettes when we were touring Australia in a camper van and all three children got a stomach bug, overnight naturally, and I had to shuttle backwards and forwards washing, drying and swapping sleeping bags - yuk! Luckily, mine was not in use so we always had one spare.

Where are you Sook? We lived in Staffs for a few years in the 70s - and made so many friends there - our first daughter was born at the General (under Mr Club, always a good joke there ).

Do you mean an electric launderette, anno? Many villages still have the wash-house, with big sinks, cold water and boards for scrubbing on. I have never actually seen anybody washing clothes in them, but I did once see a woman, stark naked, in November, standing under the running tap. I got the estate agent I was visiting to ring the local police as the wash-house was completely open to the street and she was obviously not just having a shower. Believe it or not, I was told by several women on the expat forum that I should have minded my own business!

Two years ago, in a Provencal town, we spotted an open air street launderette. I don't know what happened if it rained.

In the early 80's I went camping in the lake district with the Wonderful Man. It poured with rain and we got soaked along with all of our (limited) clothes. My husband shamelessly stripped off his wet clothes and popped them into the tumble dryer in the local launderette - I remember being both proud of his pragmatism and mortified by the fact that others were in the launderette and I was embarrassed. A few years later the Levi ad came out and I realised that, for once, he'd actually been a trendsetter.

The launderette's long-gone now though.

When I was first married, before we had a washing machine, our Saturday morning ritual was to take our washing to the launderette in the village, load it in and retire to the pub! One of us would nip back to put it in the dryer. We didn't dare leave it unattended then, though, after someone stole ex-DH's best shirt out of the dryer...

We have a couple in town, but we only used them for washing sleeping bags, so now we have duvets in the caravan, we don`t need to go anymore. I`m quite pleased really, they tend to attract kids who just want to mess about.

I have a launderette just a five minute walk from my house in a very middle class town. However it's also a seaside town and the launderette is well used by the holidaymakers I suspect.