April 12, 2016

Why I Do Laundry When It Rains

Last Friday, it rained all day. And I spent most of the day doing laundry. It took me a while to remember why I'm so conditioned to think rain = laundry: It's because we lived in Bermuda for 7 years.

Did I ever tell y'all that? I don't think I did, so today I'll share a little bit about Bermuda life. Don't worry - there will be dog pics. (Apologies though: I didn't have a great camera back then, and the images here are snapped with my phone from my photo album. There are some lovely photos of Bermuda on their tourism Pinterest page.)

There are many interesting things about Bermuda, but today I'm focusing on the roofs. Yes, the roofs. They're very pretty - a nice, crisp white, which looks lovely against the greenery of the island and the bright colors of the houses themselves.
Pastel-colored house, white roof, lush landscape? Yep, that's Bermuda!
There's no natural source for fresh water in Bermuda other than the rain, so their very unique roofs are made of local limestone, and grooved to funnel rain into each home's underground cistern. They paint them with a special non-toxic white-wash every few years.
This ceramic Bermudian house gives you an idea what the roofs are like
The water under your house is all you've got. If there's not a ton of rain, you might have to buy water, and a truck will come and drop off a load for you. When it rains a ton (which can be often!), you have more water than you know what to do with and your cistern overflows.
This is "Bluebird Cottage," one of the many places I lived there. (The houses all have names.)
Thus, when it's really rainy, you do laundry! (And maybe even take a bath - which is an unheard of waste of water at any other time!)

It would be cool if other countries followed suit, since it's a great way to collect water, but then, here in So Cal, we don't get enough rain for it to be worth the effort/maintenance.

Okay... I promised dogs... It wasn't easy to bring a dog to the island then (in the 90s, but maybe that's changed?), and there were only a few types of dogs bred there (as far as I know they were all backyard-breeder-types). So as much as the hubs and I wanted a dog, it wasn't to be.

But... we did have this lovely German shepherd pup who would visit us when we worked out in the garage of one place the hubs lived.
He was so sweet!
And once we were dog pawrents for a day! This pup showed up outside our house in the wee hours, crying like crazy. We named him Kona* and fell in love, but by the end of the day we'd found his owners. Boo.
(And, yes, the hubs is wearing shorts - Bermuda shorts, 'natch - with knee socks and a shirt & tie in that photo. That's what men wear to work there - I kid you not.)

Although we lived there a long time, I don't honestly miss Bermuda - except in the spring and at Easter. That's when the weather is the best, and on Good Friday, everyone goes to the beach and flies kites. Not just any ol' kite either - they spend a lot of time hand-making really pretty kites. If you ever want to go, I'd definitely suggest visiting in the spring!

* Yes, THIS is the Kona that the dog in What the Dog Ate is named after.

Hope you enjoyed this little visit to Bermuda!

Thanks to BlogPaws for hosting Wordless Wednesday! Thanks for letting me be wordy! You can check out all the blogs in the hop here.

35 comments:

  1. Wow, that's really interesting about the roofs and how they help collect water. Bermuda is on my list of places to visit. My parents went there when my mom was pregnant with me so I guess it's kind of like I've been there. LOL.

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    1. Lol. Well, it would be nice to go back when you could actually see stuff! :) If you like beach-type vacations, they have gorgeous beaches there!

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  2. The kite day sounds awesome but how sad you didn't own a dog. The ones that visited were sure adorable though. It's cool to have lived some different places. I've spent all my life living in one state.

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    1. We have lived a few different places (in 3 diff countries) but Bermuda was definitely the most exotic. We definitely wished we had a dog there. Our neighbors had one at one of the places we lived - a gorgeous golden - and they used to let us love on him. :)

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  3. I had a friend live in Bermuda a few years ago, unfortunately, never got to visit her. It looks beautiful and I love the use of water!

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    1. It's REALLY pretty there - of all the places I've visited, I would say Bermuda has the most beautiful beaches. Some of the beaches have pale pink sand (from crushed coral) and the water is turquoise. So lovely!

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  4. All we knew about Bermuda was that they invented shorts. Interesting post.

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  5. How interesting. And it must have been a beautiful and colorful place. I like the roof, cistern idea. If you were in the right place of course.

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    1. You would think more islands would do that - the roofs are also great in hurricanes!

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  6. Wow! Love this post. Reminded me of a country cottage I lived in years ago and one day no water. I thought "what the heck?!" And found out I'd need to have water trucked in because we'd had so little rain. Love the shorts with the tie :-) And quite frankly felt sorry for you... you were dogless! :-(

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    1. Yeah, that's what it was like. As far as I remember, we only had to pay for water once in the 7 years I lived there, so that wasn't too bad. Such a pain to run out, we were very conservative there! Used to love to go off the island - we'd always take long baths! :) And, yes, the doglessness was a bummer!

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  7. Very interesting. I would love to visit, but don't think I would like to live on an island.

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    1. It's not easy living on an island! Especially one like Bermuda which is not near any other islands, so you can't island hop to at least see something different. Bermuda is technically the 2nd most remote place in the world, because there's no place else to easily hop to.

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  8. I love those bright colors looks like a happy place

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    1. It's a very beautiful place! And it IS happy... it's sometimes described as "60000 drunks clinging to a rock." Folks do a lot of hanging out in pubs there. :)

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  9. How amazing it would have been if that puppy could have stayed with you forever!! Just landed on your doorstep one day.

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  10. I didn't know you lived there! I love how vibrant the houses are. Not being able to take regular baths might be a deal breaker for me though! Some people here have rain barrels.

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    1. I don't know how I managed to never mention on here before they we lived there! And, yeah, the bath thing was hard! For YEARS after that we took a bath every single night because we went practically 7 years without one!

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  11. You lived in Bermuda?? How cool. The houses look so beautiful.

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    1. They're really beautiful - and all different colors. Wish I had a good picture to show what the hillsides look like w/ the pink, blue, green and yellow houses with their bright white roofs.

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  12. OMG!!! How Cool IS that! We lived in Bermuda for 4 months about 30-ish years ago! So I knew that about the roofs already and it IS really great. I took the bus all over the island every single day with a 9 month old and a 2 year old, because our apt. was about 300 square feet - and it worked and was wonderful - plus we were missing January - April in Maine, where our house was back then. Best day - when the bus driver pulled over because he'd spotted ripe bananas, picked one, and gave it to me. Wild bananas… just wow. I loved it there. I really miss it too.

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    1. No way! That's wild! Ah, the good old pink and blue buses! Too funny about the ripe banana. :) I never rode the bus much - I had my little Honda Scoopy moped that I buzzed all around on. (And which I crashed a time or two after a rainstorm when the streets were slick! Still have the scars!)

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  13. Interesting way to get water! Sounds like a beautiful place
    hugs
    Mr Bailey, Hazel & Mabel

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    1. It really is beautiful there. The beaches are especially pretty!

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  14. It looks like a beautiful place, and that was all so interesting! I don't think I'd be happy for long with no daily showers and having to do laundry at certain times though! :) But by far I'm sure being dogless was the worst part of it for you (at least you got some nice dog visitors though)!

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    1. You can take showers daily there, just not baths because it's too wasteful. And you don't HAVE to wait until it rains to do laundry. There's water in your cistern - unless it's been really dry. But when it rained a lot, I would do laundry then to make use of the water and not have it go to waste if our cistern overflowed.

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  15. Wow, I had no idea about the water thing-must be similar to Hawaii. Thanks for sharing photos of your former home. And for the record, they weren't bad at all! ;)

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  16. I love this! I really enjoyed hearing the background story behind the name Kona. I also loved seeing the photos and hearing the background behind the house's roofs in Bermuda. I was on a cruise ship that spent weekends docked there Fri-Monday in/around 2004. The pink, softest sand I've ever walked on, sandy beaches were AMAZING!

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  17. Wow, that water thing could really make life complicated.

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  18. Interesting recap of your Bermuda lifestyle. As for the work attire, it's the knee socks that kill me!
    If the California drought continues, we may see more water-saving techniques like cisterns and gray water systems.

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  19. Love learning new things about my online blogging friends! I could do Bermuda for a while, could be fascinating - rain included!

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  20. So how did you get from out of the country to the OTHER side of the US?

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    1. Oh, long story... I grew up in So Cal and went to college in SD. I worked for an accounting firm here that also had offices in Bermuda so sort of transferred there. Met the hubs there, who moved from Canada. Once we left there, we went to Canada for grad school, then Philly (which we didn't like...) and then got the chance to move back here! :)

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