Over two weeks ago, our washing machine started sounding a bit off and not quite itself. It was loud and grumbly, I guess you could say.  I called our warranty center to see about getting it repaired. We eventually had a return call to say they would be coming out on the 20th. We waited patiently for ten more days for the repairer to come out. During that time we did some washing at my MIL’s house once and since then I was washing by hand. I was holding out for Tuesday when I could finally wash all the towels and dishclothes, etc. The repairer showed up quite promptly, looked at the machine for less than five minute and he was gone. The drum has been seared away from the machine and we aren’t to use it any more…Sure, we would to use it now! They have to get authorisation from the warranty center to do the repair and then come back out to take the machine away. A further down side is that the warranty center takes its time providing the authorisation and it’s likely to be a week or so before they can pick up the machine. This is considerably longer than other warranty provider, according to the repairer. Once it is taken away, we have no idea how long it will be before it is returned. I’m guessing we will have been without a machine for over a month by then. Not particularly nice in hot, summer weather.

It was inevitable that I would need to venture off to the laundromat and I could put it off no longer. Our closest laundromat is over 10-15 minutes away in a busy shopping centre. Parking reasonably close to the laundromat is almost impossible during normal business hours. I decided to go to another laundromat in a smaller shopping centre. Travel time is longer but it was much more accessible. The cost of a load of washing has increased since my last venture into the commercial laundry centre to $3 a load and, of course, I didn’t have the appropriate coins accepted by the machines. Once I exchanged cash for coins at another shop I headed inside. Nobody was there and it was reasonably clean so that was a plus. I managed to get away with two loads of clothes this time. I added the detergent to the first machine and it started running once the last coin had been accepted. I did the same for the second machine and went out to the car to hang out until they finished. Just before the expected finish time I returned and noted immediately that the second machine wasn’t running and had never started. It seems to have spat out the last coin, without my notice and was still waiting for the last dollar. That added an extra half hour to the laundry run that I could have done without.

When all was done, I started the drive home to hear that there had been a bushfire in our suburb. Roads were blocked off in one area and caution was advised in another due to smoke. The odd part is that the problem areas aren’t really anywhere near each other and nothing was mentioned about those living in-between. I had nothing to worry about because I saw no smoke at any point during the drive home. I did see one fire vehicle attending from another area and at home there had been fire helicopters passing over the area for a few hours. I think they must have contained the fire pretty quickly and are now looking for the culprits that started it. The irony is that we often have smoke problems from fires quite far away and tonight the air is still clear from what I can tell. I guess the winds blew it away from us.