Dealing with the latest in peasant technology

     Despite the fact that the Brits are quick to admonish, "Mustn't grumble," I'm afraid I'm too much my mother's child to follow that sage advice too strictly.

     The thing is, I feel like I'm in a bit of a time warp.

     We've already covered the matter of the weather. The calendar says July, but the temps still say early March -- but without the daffodils. Lots of beautiful summer flowers are in bloom, but without blue skies they appear rather disspirited and drab. Today London, on the brink of the Olympics, got a massive dose of sunshine and soaring temperatures. It's headline news throughout the U.K., especially given the fact that the new, spiffed-up sites for the Games have been drenched for weeks now.

    Here in the north, however, it was the same old story: Chilly and wet. Cumbria, apparently, couldn't buy a sunbeam if Her Majesty herself commanded it.

    Then there's the matter of the appliances. Let's address the laundry issue first. The calendar may say 2012, but for most Brits it might as well be 1512, the Tudors are on the throne, and the peasants steadfastly cling to the Medieval practice of hanging their newly-washed clothes on a line outdoors. However, any moron would realize that if it rains every day, one's clothes will never get dry outdoors -- or indoors, either, for that matter. But nary a drying machine will one find. Sears would make a killin' over here if driers were ever to catch on.

     This simple fact requires planning and complex strategery -- to quote George W. Bush -- to make sure one has clean underwear at all times. The laundry cycle becomes, at minimum, a three-day process, involving ancient, rickety wooden racks placed in front of the fire. Woe be unto she who hasn't correctly counted the number of clean drawers she's got left...

     Then there's the matter of keeping the fire stoked, and, if one is lucky indeed, figuring out how to supplement this primitive source of warmth with the operation of the furnace. Now, I'm not suggesting the furnace in this house is odd or old, but I do suspect it was installed by Hadrian and his army of Romans at the same time they built their wall just up the road circa 30 A.D. The instruction manual is written in Latin, so far as I can tell. It involves a tank of water, several resolutely cold radiators, a timer and several knobs and buttons, none of which I can see because they're located in a closet without a light.

     Even with my well-honed American can-do spirit, fueled by my freezing bones, I'm well and truly flummoxed when it comes to that furnace.

     I've run across these technological "advancements" in many of the European homes in which I've stayed, and have come to the conclusion that I wouldn't have made a very successful peasant in either Roman or Tudor times, especially in the winter. Too much grumbling, you know.