There was great excitement in the Tutt house this morning. After three weeks of laundromat visits, the Man from Miele was due to attend upon our much-loved, slightly geriatric washing machine. Before packing up over Christmas (inevitably), it had demonstrated a combination of warning signals before finally dying. The very efficient Miele lady had admitted that they were short of technicians and it would therefore take rather longer than normal to send a rescue mission. The Man from Miele turned out to be a Man from Moldova. Clearly their recruitment net had been flung far and wide. I had to admit to the young man that I was slightly hazy as to exactly where Moldova is. After his detailed explanation (it’s a landlocked country flanked by Ukraine and Romania) I wasn’t that much the wiser I’m ashamed to admit, but I know it’s nowhere near Del Monte. It is apparently one of the poorest countries in Europe, with only Brexit Britain worse off. After detailed internet research I discovered that it produces fantastic wines at very reasonable prices. The summer holiday is already booked.
The M from M was disarmingly young, but fluent in English and most efficient. He carried a black box (naturally) of which Dr Who would’ve been proud. It was like venturing into the Tardis, as he produced all manner of computers, test kits, analysis machines, cables and innumerable tools. Very quickly he was able to tell me that the whole thing was malfunctioning because of massive limescale deposits, that it had run for 9,500 hours since it’s test flight in 2005 and was in danger of suffering serious metal fatigue because of corrosion. I could give you a detailed exposition of his explanation, but I don’t want to confuse you. Obviously I understood exactly what he was saying. There were options. He could give it a run through with a nasty chemical that would de-gunge it enough to run for a few hundred hours hopefully. He could give it a service, replacing various rubbers and gauges and stuff that would cost over £400. “How much is a new one” ask I. “They probably start at around £500 from John Lewis” says he. “But I wouldn’t recommend it, because in another few months it’ll probably go wrong again, the bearings will fail, the drum will drop and that’ll cost over £1,000”. For which I could buy two new simple ones or one super dooper hi-tech model that allows you do to all your washing on your smartphone as you drive to work…or walk the dog…or research the futility of trying to grow grass under tall sycamores. It did occur to me that to repair an old machine was going to cost about £1,500, whereas buying a new one was only £500…..how does that work?!
Mr Dobrovicean departed (having happily tolerated Callie (the whippet) jumping all over him. He has a dalmatian, which made it ok) with a cheery wave and an assurance that all would be well after the flushing cycle was complete. I was relieved and excited.
Forty minutes later the red lights started flashing again and it all came to a grinding halt. Despair might be too strong a word for my emotions at that point but safe to say I was in danger of entering the red zone on the GM. (For the avoidance of confusion, the GrumpMeter has three zones. 1 to 3 is green and happy. 4 to 7 is amber and still under control but the warning signals are flashing and 8 to 10 is the red zone where lava is starting to flow and if it reaches 10 it’ll be a full volcanic eruption. I do spend most of my life in the green zone. (Quiet Oliver.) Time to go through the whole ‘unblocking the filters and exhaust pipe’ routine again. Sure enough, the de-gunge had been so effective that all the exit pipes were now blocked with large chunks of limescale. Being the skilled handyman that I am, I was able to flush it all through with minimal effort and three hours later I was finally able to get a completed wash.
I’m unsure whether we’ll go to the Dalmatian Coast this summer or venture inland to some Moldovian Chateaux but either way it’ll be in Europe. Unlike us…….maybe?
ADayInTheStrifeOf 