#atinylife Dehumidifier

Today I have been thinking about … the dehumidifier.

 

The most romantic of household appliances,

rumbling through the day in our damp bedroom,

keeping the mould back like the sentry at the gates.

But it isn’t the job that it does, that brings it into my mind,

but the noise that it makes.

Sometimes when I go to bed

I haven’t realised it’s still on,

but in the silence after I put out my light

it gutters, drips and coughs, then sets up a deep purring.

 

And I am catapulted to the summers of my childhood,

on the Aberdeen-Shetland ferry,

full of fine food from the Viking Restaurant,

filo-ed in crisp white duvet sheets on bunks,

dizzy from the pitch and roll

and the dancing earlier to the band,

 

as I am rocked gently or not so gently to sleep.