Kevin Page: Caught out at the washing line

Bringing in the washing can be a risky business especially for the neighbours Photo / 123rf

As you read this I will have just returned from a few days off playing in a golf tournament.

I nearly didn't make it. It was touch and go right up to my departure.

Basically because I had no clothes to wear. None. Not a stitch.

Let me explain.

Two things happen in our house at the end of January. One. I go away with my golf club for five days to play in a fiercely contested tournament involving like-minded individuals, five different golf courses and, er, shall we say "cultural" experiences centred on the consumption of a good brew.

Enough said.

Number two is my annual wardrobe clear out.

I've got quite good at the latter. Each January I empty my wardrobe and bedside drawers in a ruthless display of efficiency and sulkiness. Which means I'm brassed off I haven't lost the weight I decided I would when I bought all the new stuff and I can't see the point of keeping it just in case a miracle happens and overnight I can fit into that pair of pants.
You know the ones I mean. You probably got them from the same place. We might have a case for joint compensation seeing as they are obviously from a material that's prone to shrinking.

Anyway. This year my clean out was more thorough than anticipated and I overdid it. Out went several bags to the charity shop and all that was left in the wardrobe was a handful of items. And a smell.

Mrs P reckoned a lack of air had made the space a tad musty. Best to give all the clothes a wash and hang them out to dry and air, she said.

Naturally - I am a bloke after all - I left it to the last minute to tackle the intricacies of the washing machine. Well not exactly last minute but the afternoon before the early morning departure of the bus for the golf tournament.

I wasn't worried. I'd leave the stuff out till it was dry, which would only take a couple of hours in this weather, and I'd be all set.

But the big guy upstairs had other ideas. After weeks of fine weather he decided we needed a bit of rain. Only a little bit but enough to re-moisten my clobber, including all my golf gear, just before I was about to drag it all in.

With an eye on the skies I made the difficult decision to leave it all on the clothesline overnight till the last possible moment in the morning.

The only flaw in this plan was I would literally have nothing to wear for a few hours at night and then first thing before I could hurriedly dress, throw the expected dry stuff in a suitcase and race for the bus.

In fact, while the gear had been in the washing machine and on the line, initially I had sat in the lounge covered by a strategically placed bath towel.

It was the same bath towel I pressed into service again next morning, just after Mrs P had said her goodbyes and gone to work, when I got my stuff in off the clothesline.

Early mornings present a little bit of a chill where I live so I grabbed the winter coat that lives on the hook in the space by the back door and put that on too.

Dressed thus I rushed to the clothesline outside and started taking my dampish gear in. And, as I reached up to unpeg an item, the towel around my midriff dropped.

The timing could not have been better for the lady next door, who I could see had just reversed out of her garage and was now heading down the driveway in my direction.

Naturally I froze, hoping like hell I would simply blend into the background and that the winter coat would somehow stretch to cover the bits of me that now needed covering.

It was perhaps the longest 10 seconds of my life.

I eventually made it to the bus, fully clothed, and enjoyed a good time in the big smoke.

I've yet to catch up with my neighbour to ascertain exactly what she did or did not see.

But if she did see something, I'm picking the water-cooler conversation at her workplace would be more exciting than the recent furore over whether a G-string is appropriate in public.