A letter from a reader

At 68, I was still hiding the laundry basket in the spare room whenever anyone knocked

I will be honest with you from the start. Writing this feels daft. I am 68, I grow vegetables, and I have never in my life had an opinion about a laundry basket worth sharing.

But three women asked me about mine when the allotment society came round for tea, and I have now told the story enough times that writing it down once seemed the quicker option.

It was Sylvia who set it off. She went up to use the bathroom, walked past the landing, and came back down with her eyebrows up.

Pat, since when do you own anything like that?

She meant the washing basket. The washing basket. I have known the woman thirty years and the first thing in my house she has ever asked about is where I keep the towels.

To explain why that made me laugh, I have to admit to a routine I had never said out loud before.

The spare room shuffle

For as long as I can remember, my washing basket led a double life.

Monday to Saturday it was a cracked plastic thing that sat on the landing, going grey at the handles, one side split where it had been overfilled since about 2011. And the moment anybody knocked, it got picked up and carted into the spare room, out of sight, door shut.

I never thought about it. It was automatic, the same way you shove the ironing behind the sofa and put the good biscuits out. The washing basket was a thing to be hidden, because every washing basket I had ever owned was ugly, and that was simply what washing baskets were.

It took me until 68 to notice I was tidying my house away from my own guests.

What I had been getting wrong

I had it filed under things that do not matter. It is a bin for socks. Why would anybody make a nice one, and why would I pay for it.

But here is the thing I had never added up. The washing basket is out every single day of the year. It stands in the corner of the landing where I see it a dozen times a day, more often than I see most of my ornaments. The vase gets the shelf and the flowers, and the basket, which is on show far more, gets to be cracked grey plastic.

Once I had seen that, I could not unsee it. The things you use daily deserve at least as much thought as the things you dust.

The basket is called the Pearl

It comes from Manchester Boutique, a small British firm, and it is a proper piece of work.

It is a quilted fabric basket with an underwater scene stitched all the way round, sea turtles swimming over the waves in blues and sand colours, with coral and shells and little starfish running round the bottom, and a soft cream quilted cuff folded over the top. The pattern goes the whole way around, so there is no wrong way to stand it. Written down, that sounds like far too much for a laundry basket. In the corner of the landing, it looks like it belongs in a nice seaside guest house.

And it is not just a pretty face, which matters to me more. It holds its shape and stands upright on its own even when it is empty. The handles are proper stitched canvas, so a full load goes down the stairs in one trip. When I splashed it carrying wet towels, it wiped clean. And if it ever needs more than a wipe, it can be washed.

It is a simple thing done properly. Most good things are.

What happened at the tea

The allotment society came to mine on the Thursday, six of us, scones, the usual argument about slug pellets.

Three of them asked about the basket. Not the scones, the basket. Sylvia asked where it was from before she had her coat off, and Sylvia once watched me fall off a step ladder without comment. From her, that is practically a medal.

But the part I keep coming back to is quieter than that. Nobody has been shown into the spare room since, because there has been nothing to hide. The basket stays on the landing, in full view, with the washing in it, and the house feels more honest for it. That is a strange thing to get from a laundry basket, and I am reporting it anyway.

Three things worth knowing

One. It genuinely stands up. Empty, half full, overfilled on strip-the-beds day. No slumping into a sad heap in the corner, which every soft basket I had owned before did within the month.

Two. The sizes are sensible. A small for the bathroom, a medium for the bedroom, and a large that swallows a full family wash or the spare bedding. I have the medium and it takes a week of mine easily.

Three. It is not precious. It gets carried, splashed, overfilled and dumped on, and it wipes clean and carries on. Pretty is easy. Pretty that works for its living is the rare bit.

About the price

I am careful with money and I will not pretend otherwise, so this part matters to me.

The Pearl is £34.95 for the small. It was £70.00. The medium and large are a few pounds more, on the same sale.

When something useful is suddenly half price I want to know why. The why is ordinary enough. They are a small boutique selling directly, nobody in the middle taking a slice, and the summer sale is them clearing stock. Sensible practice, and it works in our favour.

I read the reviews before parting with anything, because I do not trust a perfect score. This is not one. Just over three hundred reviews, sitting at 4.2 stars, which reads like real women with real opinions, most of them good. The same points kept coming up, it stands on its own, it looks far too good for a laundry basket, visitors ask about it.

I have since ordered the small for the bathroom, which is not a thing I do lightly.

If you were stood at my kitchen table

This is what I would tell you, kettle on, no fuss.

Go and stand on your landing and look at your washing basket. If your first instinct when the doorbell goes is to move it, then you already know what I am on about, and you have been doing your own version of the spare room shuffle for years.

A laundry basket will not change your life and I would not insult you by saying otherwise. But you look at the thing a dozen times a day, and there is a small, steady pleasure in it being something you chose rather than something you put up with. I had no idea until I had one.

Two practical notes. The sale is on now, and these go quicker than you would think for a laundry basket. When the stock is gone, it is gone.

The spare room door stays open now.

Pat