Well… today, a lovely brand new washing machine arrived at our house. This is a replacement for the one that finally gave up the ghost, after a long battle with being rubbish, over two weeks ago.

Oh yes, the old one was absolutely hopeless. Half way through our first year (December-time, back in 2002) it started leaking all over the kitchen floor, and after a number of unsuccessful attempts at having it fixed (it invariably broke again every time) we gave up. We used to stuff tea towels under it to soak up the worst of the lake, but tea towels can only hold so much water before becoming saturated (read: sopping wet). Tea towels would regularly remain on the floor wet (or at least damp), for weeks before being washed and, uh… used to dry our dishes. It was a vicious cycle, but not so much vicious as unhygenic. It was an unhygenic cycle.

Anyway, after living like that for a year and a bit, at some stage near the beginning of this year (September) it started sounding like a train whenever it went into its spin cycle. Finally, it completely broke and no longer spun. It made the noise of spinning though, so at least it made a pretense.

So now we have a new one, and currently being boil-washed are the poor, faithful tea towels that have been serving king and country under the washing machine for this past month. Or even these past few months, I really can’t remember. Some of them have gone a bit green at the edges (with algae), and my housemate said he saw a dead slug (also green) wrapped up in one of them. About ten woodlice came out of the pile when we started washing them just now, as well.