The colour blue

Blue- I think of sunny days, and windy days, and wash day. I remember it well, it was always on a Monday. Ma would stand over the wash tub, arms up to the elbows in soapy water scrubbing the white sheets on the corrugated scrubbing board to get them clean. Then, it was time to rinse them and for this we used a dolly blue, a little cake of blue something (I daren’t  ask what), but it went into the rinse water turning it blue which, oddly, made the sheets a brilliant white. Then, they were wrung,  and hung on the line to flap, boisterously,  in the breeze, sails of pleasing whiteness, and all because of that little cake of blue. And us kids would play happily in the yard, skipping between the flapping washing playing god knows what, chase or hide and seek as we raced round, our shrill voices piping in the warm breeze. Then, at last, we would tumble into bed, sleepy but happy,  and pull the crisp white sheet around us, the smell of the wind lulling us , soporifically, into the untroubled sleep of the young.