Wash day afternoon

After getting over an acute attack of culture shock at Stockholm airport (where was the grit? the edge? the seething mass of Hackney humanity? The scantily-clad, orange-tinted women, the streets paved with chicken bones, the malfunctioning public infrastucture, the all-pervading stench of alcohol at 7am on the 149 bus? The dilapidated library staffed by my lovely enthusiastic council worker, our smiling Caribbean security guards, the tube workers commenting loudly but cheerfully on my lipstick of a morning,the little Turkish store on Curtain Road - an all-hours supplier of chocolate and beer... What had I given up?) I have managed to begin to adjust to well-ordered Swedish life.

In this spirit, today I obediently managed to book the Tvättstuga (washing room). This one takes it to a whole new level: it has an electronic lock that banishes you from the laundry should you dare to be late, leaving you with a week of fashion crises.

I plotted my laundry strategy all through my friend Hanna's gratisloppis, where you go over for coffee and cinnamon buns and leave (hopefully for her) with a bunch of free stuff she is keen to dispose of before moving house. Irina and I left with 8 extra-extra-large wineglasses, an Apple keyboard, two Swedish cookery books and a muffin tray. I told Hanna that now I could cook any potential Swedish boyfriends some proper Swedish food and get the poor unsuspecting boy drunk on a single, bottle-sized glass of wine. (Hanna informed me that any potential Swedish boyfriend should be doing the cooking himself, while I drank the wine.)

The laundry went relatively smoothly, due to meeting my friend Jack's laundry buddy Matti who also books the Sunday night graveyard shift. Seems this Tvättstuga is far more social than my old one. Matti and I chatted as we transferred our laundry onto drying racks. As I talked I suddenly realised that due to having worn every item of underwear I own in the washing hiatus I was chatting away while elegantly displaying the laciest, most delicate of smalls. Matti was kind enough to avert his eyes, but embarrassed I hurried back to the flat to the safety of my favouite Swedish detective series ...and an extra large wine glass.