The Washing Machine Does Not Go Round and Round

I don't want to bore you with how much I love the way this place looks just now (but I will anyway). This is the chemin this morning.




It is COLD today. I can't tell you just how cold because the thermometer is under the lean to and now I've thought about looking it's too dark to see it. But when I brought the washing in it stood up by itself which is usually the way it is before I wash it.



More so now because the wonderful clothes washing machine has decided not to be wonderful anymore and won't go round and round no matter how much I slam the door or kick it or twirl the programme thing or switch the plug on and off. I think it's dead.



I have checked the obvious things like fuses and sockets and I'm reluctant to experiment further. Not least because it's in the cellar and it's dark and cobwebby down there and I keep hitting my head on the beam. All in all it's the kind of job you need Tech Support for. I shall put it on his list right after the new chicken run.

After weeks of cursing them I felt really sorry for the chooks today, they just didn't like the frozen ground at all. In fact it depressed them so much that they only escaped once. They got pasta and tomatoes for tea but even that didn't cheer them up and they went off to bed half an hour earlier than usual.

The Washing Machine Goes Round and Round

Washing, clothes that is, has been something of a problem around here. Well washing full stop if I'm honest we have only just this week cured the leak on the shower.

But back to the clothes. Today took me back must be oh more than 35 years, to the day my mum got her first automatic washing machine. Like most families we had a twin tub. For anyone who doesn't know this was a washing machine that had, well twin tubs, one for washing the clothes in and one for spinning them. You moved the clothes from one to the other using a giant pair of wooden tongs (because clothes were boiled to within an inch of their lives in those days and yet my school socks were always greyish not like those girls who always had brilliant white socks and the elastic was always a bit shot probably due to the boiling I still have issues with white clothes) anyway when I say spinning boy do I mean spinning. It certainly got the water out but you then had to peel your creased beyond all recognition clothes off the side of the drum and they would have all the marks from the littles holes permanently in them.

I had a twin tub when I first got married. The spin on that was so vicious that it would come dancing across the kitchen to get you disconnecting the hose on the way and flooding the kitchen.

So anyway, mum got an automatic washing machine and we all sat mesmerised watching it go round, even the dog. It was a day of firsts actually because we also tried instant mashed potato that day (not a success).

Today we did the same except for the instant mash and the washer is in the cellar not the kitchen and the cat watched as well as the dog. After six months of hand washing we are the proud owners of a new to us washing machine. My life is transformed.

No, seriously it is. Honest. I don't know how my mum felt all those years ago but after six months of hand washing everything I really really appreciate having a washing machine any washing machine. I draw the line at a twin tub though.