Sunday, 6 November 2011

Domestic not so bliss.....

Electrical appliances, and particularly those involved with the smooth running of the household, have long been a mystery to me.

The worst offender has to be the washing machine, there's just too many dials and buttons and why, oh why, is it necessary to keep changing where the powder goes? This alone has flummoxed me on the rare occasions when I've been let loose on the laundry.

I've managed to put tablets that should go in the drum into the slidey-out drawer so the washing has gone through a complete cycle and come out as grubby as it went in and I've had to scoop out the resultant powder mulch with a spoon. Then there was the time I wondered out loud why the clothes had come out quite so dry only to be told I hadn't actually switched the water supply on.

The piece de resistance was in France when I resorted to calling out the repair man because the machine wasn't spinning and everything was coming out sopping wet. I stayed in all day for him to arrive, take one look, sigh and mutter under his breath in that way that only Gallic men can, press a button and disappear smartly back to his van. It would appear that in the UK the button to stop a machine spinning is pressed in and on French machines it's left out (or possibly the other way round). Forget the Euro, we can't even agree on our washing machine buttons.

It seems the lack of a domestic gene may have been inherited by the 10-year-old son. He enthusiastically asked this morning if he could wash my car to earn some money. I happily accepted, told him to get a j-cloth out from under the sink and left him to it, only to come down later to find him contentedly washing away - with a yellow duster. I now have a blue Mini, admittedly slightly cleaner than it was, but literally covered in yellow fluff. Bless him.

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