Shattered...

It's been a sad week in the Bird's household.

My faithful washing machine has been making a rather troublesome noise over the past few weeks.  Now this is something I am used to, as my washing machine often makes strange noises, but this is usually down to contents of the husband's trousers not being removed before he throws them in.  More often than not, this is often a couple of six inch nails or some washers, or on one memorable occasion, a tape measure.

But this was slightly more sinister, and it sounded as though there were four bricks being spun at 1600 rpm come the spin cycle.

So I did what any normal person would do and called an engineer out.  £78 call out, and after five and a half minutes of huffing in my laundry, he said, 'Well love, there's your problem'.  Sitting on the worktop was a hunk of cement, with one corner missing.  'Was that in my machine?' I asked (can you tell that I never went to Hotpoint Evening Classes?)

Well it turned out that this vital piece of balancing equipment had shattered inside the washing machine, which explained the noise, and he went on to drape a piece of black cloth over his bald pate and passed the death sentence on my faithful old Hotpoint.

When the husband came home that evening, I was trawling through various electrical supplier websites deciding which one I was going to replace it with, and the husband, looking at the chunk of concrete declared that it was a mere flesh wound, and would I order up the part from Hotpoint and he would replace it.  I should at this point tell you that the husband is marvellous at many things, but he has also never attended Hotpoint Evening Classes, and I ordered up the part (another £40) with a sinking feeling that this was all going to go wrong.

Which of course it did...

The part arrived, and the husband disappeared into the laundry with it and various hefty looking tools.  Half an hour later, he was back.  'Any preference as to which machine you want then?  That one's a goner'.  Brilliant, the same advice for free which I'd already paid £78 for.

I am now the proud owner of a rather trendy Samsung machine which since arriving on Saturday morning hasn't paused for breath.  

There's stuff on it I don't understand, instructions I will never any notice of but it seems to do the job.  

A bit like the husband I suppose...