Strange that you don't notice things until they've almost gone. Sad. Odd, too, when you finally recognise what it is that's actually disappearing and right in front of your eyes. I had that "awakening" whilst I was walking in the area where I live. I suddenly realised that nearly all the launderettes had closed. Accepted that for some people this probably does n't mean anything; for me, it does, and it's not just that a local business has fallen by the wayside, there's more in there, personal, social as well.

The morning, or on occasions, the evening, at the launderette was a regular event during my early years in London. I had a tiny bedsit, with room enough for a bed, a table and chair, along with a semblance of a kitchen - two gas rings and a fridge that hummed and clunked. Nothing else in there. No more space. So that was it, walk to the nearest launderette with a bagful of coins. I must have read thousands of books sat on a hard wooden bench, lulled by the sound of the machines turning round and round, or patiently waiting for a dryer to come free.

After a few years, I bought somewhere, and a few years after doing that, when I still trudged to the launderette (could n't quite break the near tradition I'd fallen into for one thing along with a dire shortage of money for another), I bought a washing machine. Today, the launderette is an alien experience. In that personal sense, which I mentioned earlier, it's a stage in my life marked as over.

In those early days, there were countless people like me, living in similar rooms, having to to make the same commitment to the local laundry. What happened to all of us is the consequence of a changing demographic as much as it is a tale of personal evolution. Simply this. Bedsitland disappeared. Today it might as well be talked about in the same way as Lyonesse is. It's that relevant. Bricks and mortar have transformed their mundane state to become currencies. Those houses which were once chopped and diced into small rooms, each with it's own tenant - gone. All rebuilt and rewoven into beautiful, elegant apartments. Nothing there any longer to support the local launderettes. No need for them.

This is n't intended to be an elegy. Things change, that's life.