Friday 1 July 2011

A dirty washing mountain and a flooded kitchen...

So last week we spent a week in a caravan on the Llyn Penisula in North Wales, and I was all ready to share with you trials and tribulations of our first holiday with two little ones and a Nanna tagging along! However on Tuesday disaster struck! I was three washes into what seemed to be a never ending mountain of of clothes (I still don't understand how my seven month old daughter filled a bigger suitcase than me and hubby combined!) when I heard the washing machine beep, I was distracted with sorting Ben's supper so I just assumed it was the 'end of wash' beep and ran into to turn it off before the noise woke Elizabeth from her nap. A while later I remembered the wash had finished so with Elizabeth in one arm I went into the kitchen to open it up and start getting sorting things out for the dryer, As I opened the door of the machine I was immediately attacked by a river of water! Within seconds my tiny little kitchen was completley flooded, at first I just stood there in shock totally drenched from the waist down, for a minute I thought I was going to cry, then my cheeky little daughter started giggling away! I'm glad someone found it amusing!

So after we had the little ones in bed and had used up almost all the towels we owned (which was most of the first two washes I had managed to do!) soaking up the kitchen floor (for once I was thankful to have such a tiny kitchen!) My hubby pulled out the machine and had a look at it, discovering it looked like the pump had gone. Always one to try and repair something before replacing I immediately started looking online for replacement parts, and finding I could get the part for £40 including delivery I was relieved for a momemt, until we looked at how complicated it would be to fit. Both myself and hubby dabbled in diy but we were a bit unsure about this, so we started calling round local repairers, not being able to get a call out for less that £40 we had a decision to make was it worth spending around £100 on a four year old machine when something else may go wrong soon or should we just bite the bullet and buy a new one?

It does look like we'll have to get a new one as we really can't be without it, For the last two days I've been traipsing the kids round to my MIL's twenty minutes walk away with bags full of dirty nappies and clothes hanging off the pram, we're now just about on top of the holiday washing but it's starting to build up again (especially in the nappy bucket!) and I can't do this every day!

Now this may sound silly but I have a kind of emotional attachment to our washing machine, it was the first major purchase myself and hubby made together. Four years ago, when I was pregnant with our son, we moved to a bigger flat and unlike our old place it didn't have a washing machine so off we went to Currys, and I have a vivid memory of us standing there deciding to spend £300 on a brand new one, thinking of all the cute little white baby clothes it would be washing... Now four years later the only thing it's washing is our kitchen floor and the next purchase is going to be be a reluctant one.

It really couldn't have come at a worse time moneywise, just back from our holiday's and hubby's just started his new job so we've got a six week gap between pay packets and my SMP is barely worth mentioning, I guess we'll just have to break into our (small) saving's pot...

I guess sometimes however careful you are with money big unavoidable expenses just come out of no-where. If anyone has any suggestions on the best place to get a good deal on a new machine, please do share! In the meantime i'm off to take Ben to swimming... maybe he could go fully dressed to clean his clothes?? They let them go in their pyjamas don't they...

1 comment:

  1. Oh no!!!

    You must be a tough cookie...I would have crumbled and cried my eyes out lol!

    Angie x

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