Time Enough

I always got a chuckle out of what seemed like the national 'aversion to convenience' of the English. Things like mixing your own windscreen washer fluid from concentrate, instead of picking it up in a big jug in which it's already mixed. Or being able to buy ibuprofen only in packets of 16 instead of 150-pill bottles, or finding ways to dry your laundry on a rainy day when the clothesline isn't an option.

Look at toilet paper. In the States, we would buy it in packs of 48 rolls -- sometimes two at a time -- and keep the extra on a shelf in our basement. This was very convenient; we never ran out of toilet paper. At our local Waitrose, the largest package contains nine rolls. This is probably a good thing, since we have no basement, and our garage and third bedroom are currently filled with all of the stuff we brought with us and have no room for in a house that's half the size of what we had in Massachusetts. We need to become better at planning for our toilet paper needs.

In another example, drying laundry on a line should be done whenever possible. In my world that means on sunny days, or perhaps overcast and breezy. But this is England, where winters are cold, dark, and wet -- perfect for using a clothes dryer. The problem: they require space, and in a house where under-counter kitchen appliances consist of separate refrigerator and freezer, and a washing machine, there's no room. We have a condenser dryer, which is keeping our boxes of books company in the third bedroom. But even where people have dryers, the cost of electricity can make them expensive to run.

Things take time: mixing the fluid, making another trip to the store, hanging laundry, setting up and using the drying rack. It's worth reminding ourselves that for many reasons time is not, in fact, money. Nor does it free up cupboard space to stock up on food, water, and medicines in case of blizzard, epidemic, or zombies outside your door.