Chez nous, les lavandieres Dollivair

As long as the lucky Dollivers got to go to a French movie, the stay at homes decided to improve the shining hour this morning and make their own laundry soap. Or, since they insist on speaking French in revenge for the outing, nous faisons notre savon a linge, comme les vraies paysannes Francaises. They don't know how to do accents, so you have to fill in your own.

It should be pointed out that they did not do this with a will. It started out more as a won't, until it was forcibly brought home to them that money saved on expensive laundry detergent could be poured into new duds for Dollivers. This changed the complexion of the argument somewhat, and insisting only on new gingham dresses and special soapmaking hats for the procedure, they agreed to make the stuff.



Aided by Duncan, who wondered why they wanted the empty litter bucket, not realizing it was only a dramatic prop, the Dollivers are all about theater, and that an ordinary dull old saucepan would in fact be used as a vat.

All benign materials used in this process, washing soda, borax, a bit of handsoap, much hot water and stirring. The hardest part was finding a container for the product which could be stoppered and kept on the washing machine, thank you Heather, the birdseed container worked just fine. Now the magic stuff is curing in the bathroom propped in a sink in case any disaster happens to the container, in which case we'll have lovely clean pipes instead.

And the Ds came back with the final zinger: Ha! nous autres, nous sommes les Marthes de cette maison! Les Maries vont au cinema. Ptui!

Then they went back to their perch, insisting on wearing their working gear just to make the point that Martha never stops working and Mary never starts...