Julie Jay: I’ve finally bought a clothes dryer after 817 consecutive days of rain

Whatever about global climate disasters, there can be no doubt that West Kerry is officially the wettest place on Earth, and I have the eternally, slightly damp waistbands to prove it.

Up until today, we have been a renegade household when it comes to drying clothes. We usually rely solely on air-drying to get us through, with extremely and consistently disappointing results, like most things I attempt in life.

I knew my obsession with drying clothes had gone too far when my three-and-a-half-year-old inspected the garments hanging on a clothes horse first thing on a rainy Tuesday morning.

“Still not dry,” he tut-tutted in an uncanny mimicking of his mammy. Sadly, I had become obsessed with drying clothes, to the point where I have been eyeing up new clothes-horses online the way I once eyed up new handbags in expensive department stores.

Checking out a particularly fetching technical-looking one recently, I couldn’t help but marvel at the neon shade. “Look, this one’s lime-green,” I said to my husband, who doesn’t share my enthusiasm for new contraptions, which I’m fully sure will turn my life, and by extension, his life, around.

While most countries have embraced more modern ways to get the damp out of their clothes by using drying machines, we Irish are determined to stick to the Amish way of laundry. It’s an amazing system: Put some clothes out on a clothes horse in a small, ventilation-free space and watch those same thick leggings dry in a mere six to seven days. Genius!

Last night, I confessed to a particularly eco-friendly friend that I had decided to buy a dryer to help alleviate family laundry loads, and she was horrified.

“But Julie, they’re so bad for the environment,” she chastised. “We’ve always just hung everything out on the line and managed grand”, she added, omitting a key point that she lives in Sydney and therefore enjoys weather that is better for drying because it is, in fact, dry.

The sooner we accept that in Ireland wet weather and wet clothes are the marriage most likely to end in irreconcilable differences, the better.

Given that today is the 817th day of consecutive rain, I have finally admitted defeat and purchased a dryer over the phone, courtesy of our local hardware shop. 

With their cheapest model being out of order, I splurge an extra €50 (gulp), which I think gives me a light in the drum, just so some single, partner-less socks feel less lonely in there, spinning around like Kylie Minogue. 

It’s the same reason I pay a tenner extra for the train: The speed at which we reach Killarney station may be equally and inexplicably glacial, but at least the cheery table lamp in the first-class section reminds us that there is light at the end of the long Irish Rail tunnel.

The dryer has only been in my possession for less than seven hours, but I have already shed tears nearly twice about the ways in which it has transformed my quality of life.

It will be a family heirloom, I tell my husband. Our grandchildren will inherit this transformative invention and marvel at Granny’s foresight in putting us all out of our soaking-wet misery.

Since its arrival, the baby has gone through his usual multiple outfit changes after meals, and the three-year-old’s muddy tracksuits have been cleaned and are (gasp!) cupboard-level dry.

Yes, not to brag, but this machine has multiple settings for busy households, including cupboard dry, sports dry, and extra dry. I think one setting of ‘dry’ would be more than sufficient, but who am I to tell these life-changers how to run their business?

I am, after all, the woman who has volunteered for 12 months of domestic martyrdom by refusing to purchase a dryer until her mental health entirely depended on it. 

Nobody tells you just how many clothes a family will go through in the space of a day, but it is incredible. Three and a half years in, I still can’t make sense of just how many trousers we can get through in 24 hours and that’s just my husband.

As I type this, I have plonked the baby in front of the dryer, and he is happily watching the clothes go round and round in our brand-new appliance, much like local councils go round and round before agreeing not to make a decision. 

Not only does this machine dry, but it also provides hours of baby-friendly entertainment.

Forget watching paint dry, have you watched clothes dry? It’s incredibly soothing, especially when it once took you over a week to dry a pair of mom jeans, leaving you so exasperated you eventually put them on, convincing yourself they would dry on your body. 

Yes, I turned myself into a walking, talking clothes horse.

Come to me for all your drying needs. We pride ourselves on an eight-day turnaround for socks and knickers, which, when we consider Irish weather conditions, is basically next-day delivery.