The Clothes Peg

The Lowly Clothes Peg

I didn't reckon on clothes pegs coming into a blog, let alone provide the story behind a blog. They seem remarkably uninteresting even though they're useful. I would imagine that of all the items or gifts H.M.QE2 has received during the last sixty years, a clothes peg - gold plated or otherwise - is not amongst them. Clothes Pegs never warrant a mention at coffee mornings, are never included on Christmas present lists or birthday present lists. Who has ever seen a wedding present list with clothes pegs on it? But wonder of wonders the clothes peg, as of last night, became my heroine of the hour. I say heroine because in French, a clothes peg is a feminine noun - la pince à linge. This new found status is from my point of view very splendid indeed and totally unexpected.
 

I was born with double-jointed fingers, toes and thumbs. It's a common condition. The biggest problem for me are my fingers. They can lock like claws, and have to be massaged  back into a normal shape so they work again. I used to play saxophone and piano and didn't seem to run into any difficulties with either of those instruments. But I now play the accordion and it seems to trigger my fingers into such a locked position that I can't bend them or play anything. Last night was one of those moments. I've often thought about giving up playing, but I enjoy it too much, and being of a stubborn disposition I can't quite bring myself to do it.

In desperation I surfed the net and discovered a site, How to correct doublejointedness. It's written by a violinist Loralyn Staples, who is herself double-jointed and has had all sorts of problems during her career. There is a short video on her site which shows an exercise using a clothes peg, to help build up the muscles in those fingers which are usually the worst affected - the thumb, the little finger and the ring finger next to it. These fingers on both my hands are so weak, that even using two fingers to open and shut the clothes peg, as the video demonstrates, was impossible. So to start with I had to use the middle finger as well. Today however, I am already noticing the difference. I'm down from three fingers to two and will keep on going. This exercise really seems to be working. If there's anyone you know with a similar problem, please pass it on. Definitely worth them trying it.