We have been slugabeds and wake late. When we come into the kitchen in dressing gowns and slippers, rubbing the sleep and dried tears from our eyes, the room is filled with steam and heat like a Turkish bath, deliciously cut through with the draught from the open scullery door. The table is spread with a folded blanket topped with a grey sheet, and Mrs Crowe is sprinkling water on a shirt to get the creases out. She ploughs through the stiff cotton with one flat iron, a cloth round its hot handle, while the other iron heats by the range fire. She holds the iron close to her cheek, shakes her head, dissatisfied, and swaps it for the other. After every few swishes of the new iron, she places it on a hunk of Sunlight soap to make it glide better. Outside hang the clothes already ironed since dawn that morning, the scent of clean cotton wafting in on the air. Breakfast is porridge, keeping warm in a pot on the range. The younger boys have had theirs and are in the street playing. Mr Crowe has been out on the boat for hours.
