Washday Blues

We bought this old house ten years ago. We inherited the washing machine. It has sat in the cellar since we moved in and has, for the most part, served us well without complaint or complication. Until last week. It simply died. Bereft of life and full of water, it refused to wash more. We decided it was time to let it go to the happy washing ground in the sky rather than try to repair a fifteen year old machine. The hunt was on then. Where do we get a new washing machine at a reasonable price? Timing is everything, they say, and right now, the January sales are on. Bravo. Score one for us.

Off, then, to the mall. Or the “maul” as I like to call it. Having read all the brochures and advertising that fills our post box every weekend, we knew where to go for a bargain, so that part of the search was easy. We trooped off to the local hardware merchants with a pretty good idea of what we wanted. Until we got in there. My wife suddenly decided to up the ante. There were special features she wanted and she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

Having seen her in action at the car sales, I decided to let her go for it. I wasn’t getting anything from the salesman so I set the wife on him, which is a bit like letting an angry bull terrier loose on a teddy bear. It’s no contest. She asked him a thousand questions. Compared just about every machine to every other machine. Argued price, finish, design, programming, washing capacity and energy usage. Yep, she’s thorough. I got bored and began pressing buttons and stuff, to no avail because none of the machines were connected to either power or water supplies. It passed the time.

Finally I heard some “OK” noises from the direction of the beleaguered salesman and so I went to see what was happening. Turns out, my wife had done it again. She bagged a brand new machine for about 60% of the asking price. It’s a beaut. Hotpoint, holds 16 pounds of laundry, energy efficient, hot and cold wash, all the programming possibilities one could ask for and it looks kind of nice too. The model has an unfortunate number. It’s called a..

“WMD 960 P”

WMD? I guess it’s a “washer of mass destruction”…!

I’m afraid of the bloody thing already.

Which will be a reasonable excuse for not touching it and thereby free myself from blame if it ever blows up.

We had to wait a week for delivery. That is to say, delivery to the store. I had to go pick it up myself. No problem with my car, it’s an estate version, but it was in the workshop so we had to wait a few days more.

I collected it yesterday. Drove it home, ripped out the old machine and installed the new. Easy. All we have to do now is catch up on fourteen days laundry.

I know what I’m going to be doing this weekend.

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Wrapped Sausages

We’ve been having a real cold spell over here recently. Now that the global warming crowd have failed in Copenhagen to give us the predicted desert conditions that we expected, winter is upon us with a climatic vengeance.

I don’t normally take special consideration to the weather. It is what it is. I dress accordingly. Our dogs, can’t do this but as they are sporting the years winter coat that they normally do, I don’t worry too much about it. My wife, on the other hand, couldn’t stand the thought of the two dogs, who do sink into the snow, dragging each eight highly sensitive nipples over the icy surface. Dachshunds have remarkably short legs. The snow builds up as an ice sheet, clinging to the shorter hairs on those delicately pink bellies. That was simply unacceptable to the long haired and lovely one of us. I won’t go into detail here, but she has already tried knitting leg warmers for the dogs, but they couldn’t keep them on.

So then, it had to be. Coats for the dogs, complete with a belly binder to protect the tender bits. The dogs protested a bit at first. Getting into these things is not so easy as it appears to be. One starts by putting their heads into the appropriate holes, stretch the upper coat down the back and slip the back legs into the elasticated straps which holds the thing in place. The belly warmer goes between the front legs, stretches over the tummy and is then closed over the back of the dog at the hips.. if your dog has hips. Ours do, albeit slightly fat ones.

The dogs ran around in the house sporting these things and looked at each other in disbelief. How could we do this to them? Why?

That became apparent as we ventured out this morning. The dogs seemed to enjoy being a little warmer out there and not coming home with an icy panzer plated stomach. They still allowed themselves the luxury of laying down in front of the wood stove with two bellies up and eight legs skyward after the walk but I think they appreciate our protective efforts anyway.

Here they are. In all their fashionable glory.. And they call it a CATwalk..?