At least two ways to skin a cat....another sock story

My mother is one of 8 daughters born to a village school-principal and his wife, the heiress of the neighbouring village-pub-owner.

Two sisters died in infancy, 6 survived to adulthood.

A very close-knit bunch, the 4 that are still around (in their late 60s and 70s) communicate daily and share their accumulated knowledge on tightly-run households freely.

An issue that 2 of them feel to have figured out really well, isn’t unique to the sisters.

The phenomenon of ‘disappearing socks, once they hit the dirty-clothes-basket’ has been well documented world-wide – you’ll find it hard to locate sceptics brave enough to question this happening all the time, everywhere.

What is interesting, are the methods that my mother and the one-next-to-the youngest sister have developed to cope with this act of natural misfortune.

My aunt long ago decided to only buy black socks. A proud mother of two boys and a devoted wife to one of my favourite uncles, the only sacrifice she had to make was herself wearing black socks over a lifetime.

Mum on the other hand, has 2 daughters and even the grand-daughters outnumber grandsons, 4 to 2.

Her method of coping has been to pair-up socks without any relevance to colour or pattern, so her family is known as always wearing mismatched foot-coverings.

There must be something very important to learn from them!