We were downcast to discover this morning that the washing machine has been leaking again.
Mark inspected it, and announced that the door seal has worn through already, and had a large tear in it.
He said that the real problem was that the machine’s shock absorbers were worn out, and that the drum is not sitting correctly during washing. It is clattering and banging and rumbling and thudding, and bashing itself against the door seal, making a hole.
I knew that it was doing something upsetting, because I have been able to smell it sometimes when I have opened the door. It has had a special burning rubber smell that I have been ignoring, because I knew that it would only upset me if I thought about it.
This was a wearisome discovery, because we know really that we are going to have to replace the washing machine. We have fixed this one again and again and again. It has had all manner of new bits, and it has reached the age where no new bit will keep it going for very much longer.
There is not actually very much of the original washing machine left anyway.
We thought about a new washing machine for a while, and then Mark went round to the ironmonger’s and bought a puncture repair kit. He used it to make a patch for the door seal. We do not have enough cash in our budget for a new washing machine at the moment.
The carpet is very wet again. I hope the puncture repair kit works.
He went over to the farm then, and I cooked things for putting into picnics over the weekend. I cooked too many things really, because it is hard to remember that there are only two of us, and we will not eat a whole chicken as well as twelve sausages. There was not much I could have done about this, though, because Sainsbury’s does not sell half chickens. We will just have to eat what we can and then put the rest into a curry.
Mark will probably eat twelve sausages, actually.
I went to the library, where the library ladies and I had a discussion about the difficulties of having elderly bladders, and we all had a little worry about dementia. None of us have got this yet but we are concerned. I forgot one of my books on the way out, and had to go back for it, which seemed to prove the point.
Mark rang from the farm to say that the man from the scrap yard had brought the wrong size of truck, and could not collect the camper van after all, so he will have to go back again when the man comes with the right truck next week.
He stayed at the farm for ages, tidying up the pile of scrap iron and car tyres and rusty digger and useful things that Mark has left there because he is not allowed to keep them in the garden. You can see these from the road now that they are not hidden behind an enormous camper van, and we think that the National Park might be cross all over again when they notice.
I got impatient about the tidying up, because although I knew that it needed to be done, we have not done anything at all to our garden building site all week, and it is nearly Christmas.
I mentioned it in passing when Mark came home, so he went into the garden and put the rest of the boards on for the new roof before we went to work. We are going to have to stick something over the top of this, but we don’t know what yet, probably something cheap. I suggested the lino left over from the camper van, which will look peculiar but is within our budget.
I have attached a picture, you can see the conservatory-in-waiting on top of the old shed.
The drains are the next bit. We need to make sure that these are all right before the monsoon season. This is almost upon us.
We will have to get on with it.
