We inherited a washing machine from the woman who used to live in the flat. It was so old that the dial had been worn smooth, and the only perceptible markings on it were a green line, a blue line and a red dot. “It used to belong to my Mum,” she told us. “I don’t have the manual anymore—” (has it decomposed? I wondered. It really was that old) “—but it’s easy to use. You just twist the dial three clicks to the left of the red dot, pull it out, wait for it to run, turn it two clicks to the right, wait for two minutes, push it in, wait for two more minutes, twist it four clicks to the left and hope that it opens.”

I looked at the programs printed on the front of the powder drawer and tried to work out, safecracker-like, which program that might be. “And if we have to wash anything other than, let’s see…left three, right two, left four…Nylon Whites at 90° with a 2,000rpm spin?” I asked.

But in the spirit of not looking a gift horse in the mouth, we happily suffered the odd T-shirt reduced to postage stamp size and averted our eyes from the electricity bills generated by this monster. There was, of course, the minor drama of a leaking pipe and a put-upon downstairs neighbour, but once the new hose was in place we went back to a happy coexistence with our sun-cracked beige ’70s appliance.

Then, with Ash off in Canada for most of February, I was left in sole charge of the beast. Everything mostly seemed to go well; I did once have to call her and sheepishly ask how to get the door open at the end of the washing cycle, but leaving it to rest for a couple of minutes and then giving the door a firm yank seemed to sort it out. And so it went until the first wash after she got back.

I went through the usual rigmarole: twist the dial to the appropriate point; wait for a couple of minutes; sternly yank the handle, only to rip open the locked door and send the watery contents of the machine onto the scullery floor.

Rockin’.

The old lady from downstairs rang our doorbell shortly after we’d mopped up the deluge and duct-taped the washing machine closed, and in that kindly oh-it’s-no-trouble-really sort of way she apologised for her kitchen roof having had the temerity to start leaking a second time. We begged her forgiveness and assured her that a new washing machine would be ordered as soon as possible, and that she should have suffered her final inundation from above.

The new machine arrived a couple of weekends ago. We connected it to the cold inlet pipe, apologised again to the lady downstairs when the newly unused hot inlet pipe decided to start leaking in an unassuming but persistent fashion, and dealt with this last possible source of troubled waters with copious amounts of electrical tape and a large bucket.

I’m ready to make the switch to a washboard and mangle.

* * *

Coba Fynn (now finally, reluctantly and regrettably with added MySpace presence) continues to produce new material and new offspring—Chris & Leyla are expecting a baby in September so that Charlie & Penny’s kid will have someone to play with during the 20th anniversary tour in 2019. Congratulations guys!

Oh, and we probably have a gig this Sunday at the Universal. But nothing is firm yet; our plans still have a spongy quality to them. More news as it happens.