You could be forgiven for thinking I’ve thrown in the towel and decided to be Miss Misery Guts this week.
Looking back on it, it’s not going to be all plain sailing to fix, but hey, we’re all alive, and I can afford to put food on the table for my kids. So – why on earth have I been finding myself almost biting my nails and nervously chewing my hair with appliance breakdowns?
Answer me this, just who invented the full moon phase? Whoever that was must have been a wizard of epic proportions to be able to smite us down with such a wave of an electric wand.
I’m not in the slightest bit paranoid for thinking that the lunar phase of the mood is responsible for the breaking down of electrical currents, and the shortening of the lives of our favoured and prized household machinery gadgets.
Starting slowly, the trouble brewed gently. A fridge that doesn’t keep food cold is no use in a home where you need a week worth of school dinner ingredients on those hallowed cool shelves. Buying fruit on Friday and having it go rotten by Monday really hits home about how we depend on our American Style Fridge Freezer.
After three weeks of looking for a side by side American style fridge I could afford, I admitted defeat and signed on the dotted line for an early delivery on Thursday this week of a regular American style fridge freezer.
The dishwasher chronicles have gone on for a while, so it was no stranger that it decided to give up the ghost and join the old fridge freezer in the graveyard for electrical appliances.
That would be enough for most people, wouldn’t it?
Not for us apparently.
With a rare blast of sunshine on Thursday, kidlets went out into the garden to play a little footie, as you do when you’re an adolescent boy wanting to show off your newly found testosterone injected strength.
Good neighbours are hard to find and we’ve got two. Thankfully neighbour across the fence next door understands the problems with middler, even if we rarely ever see or speak to them. Middler had decided to start bullying them, which ended in two broken windows in their newly (expensively) built extension,as he decided to use their window as target practice for the chuckies around our patio.
Profuse apologies and embarrassed conversations led to taking measurements to get the toughened glass window units replaced. Thankfully we have contacts who have given us the units at cost, and we can also fit them for zero labour charge.
If we’d had to pay labour, we’d likely have been into the thousand bracket instead of the hundreds to fix. Middler is now grounded for the rest of his natural born existence.
Friday morning came and went in a flurry of activity and under breath muttering as I blamed the man, completely unfairly, of switching off the boiler before he departed for money making activities.
Getting the kids ready for school with chattering teeth and cold showers really made the start to my day complete. With massive foresight, I refused to go for a combi boiler when we installed our last one and insisted on the dual, so we still have the gas fire in the lounge and electric for hot water.
The engineer has been and he’s not sure if the fan has gone, or if it is just the transformer so another 3 day wait for a teeny transformer. If that doesn’t work, there’s no point in getting the fan as it costs about half the price of a new boiler. What’s worse is that the boiler is only about 7 years old, and I’m gutted at the cost implications, especially as the one I grew up with chugged along for over 20 years.
Tuesday came and I decided to vacuüm the lounge. This proved to be an exercise that needed much wrestling with tube, hose and uncoupled couplings care of Dyson jigsaw puzzle hoovers.
Determined not to get to appliance 4, and disaster 5 of the week, a pair of sugar tongs managed to shift the contents of the last hoover user, a 12 year old whose top drawer is likely to have been vacuumed, as it is the hiding place he stuffs empty sweetie wrappers he has illicitly procured from the kitchen.
What more can possibly go wrong?
What a nightmare, things have to get better. x
just read your blog on appliance gremlins nightmare! Never rains but it pours – hope all fixed soon!
Oh, that’s harsh! I guess the only positive thoughts I can utter are that once this little lot is all sorted and paid for, you should be ok for a while… children’s football and sweet eating antics withstanding. Good luck and keep smiling!
It’s been a long week or two, I have to say. Looking back to normal bills next month !!!!