Polly's Gone Automatic...

Looking around the house today I feel as though I've managed to get so much done over the past few weeks. The truth is that being organised is the biggest part of the job, the next part is chipping away at things slowly for a few minutes at a time. Fifteen minutes at a time actually...

On a good day I can move mountains, on a bad day I can move molehills. Whichever day it is, whether with the assistance of pain relief or not I find that putting a load of washing in when I first get up has to take priority over everything else bar letting the dog out. Once that's done, I'm on the right track and can move onto completing the other niceties like heading down to the bathroom, cleaning my teeth (during which time I swish & swipe with my homemade vinegar cleaner), brushing my hair, taking my tablets, getting dressed and of course making my first cup of tea for the day.

I don't recal just how long it's been since fate intervened and decided that Polly should buy a new washing machine but it's been a while now. I distinctly remember that DG & I went looking for one in the nearby town of Newbridge on afternoon. Heaven only knows quite why we decided to travel 27miles to select a washing machine, when we could have visited the local branch of the same store just 9miles away!

The 'new' washer is just that. It's a washer! This said, there are only three programmes I've yet to use; these are both of the economy settings because they take forever when a non-economy setting at the same temperature takes half an hour less (yes, I know!) and the sportshoe wash programme. I am one of those rare beasts that uses my washer to the absolute best of my ability...

DG's work jeans usually get boiled alive at 95C - it gets stubborn agricultural dirt out and makes them last longer. His shirts are allowed to cook at around 40C. His & the boys socks go in on a 60C programme and are pretty much the only items persistently tumble dried, life's too short to be hanging them out on the line! Most of my pretties (I can no longer refer to them as smalls) are delicate and are treated as such. I use the silk and the wool cycles interchangably depending on which I've got the most of, fabrics and synthetics I'm not sure of get the 30C treatment, despite the fact that I've got a synthetic cycle at 40C & one at 50C and by far my favourite setting is the 30' mini-cycle for lightly soiled things.

By far the best thing about this machine is the fact that it is indeed automatic. It's an energy saving appliance which fills from the top and is also water saving in nature. One thing I'm not crazy about is that I need a man to help me undo the cover when something like a plectrum or a penny get caught in the filter, I'm just not strong enough to open it. DG has suggested using a mole/vice grips but the opportunity has yet to arise!

By far the best feature of my all singing, all dancing machine is the fact that I've recently discovered that there is indeed a need for pre-setting a delayed start. Yep, this is what I've been doing over the past couple of days before going to bed at night. Why? Because I don't want to be the victim of my appliances bursting into flames while unattended. Drama queen? Perhaps, but I did once witness my friends dishwasher doing just that, luckily it was during the day while we were around and able to deal with it.

So why have I all of a sudden become paranoid about this? It's largely thanks to another friend nagging her Mum about the same thing, Flylady's essays on the subject and a new acquaintance of mine who just happens to be an insurance claims assessor/adjuster. As a result of all of the above my washing had been growing - again - to Mt Washmore proportions and my frustration with it. I read something about using the delay start on Flylady.net and obviously it struck a chord as now I'm ahead of myself at last.

And hey! Guess what? If it happens that it's going to be a pain filled bad day I don't end up feeling bad about not keeping up with the washing! I can go back to bed and wait for my pain relief to kick in in the secure knowledge that the house is in the process of looking after itself.

And that ladies & gentlemen is just perfect...

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Chapter's 2 & 3 (It Just Gets Worse!)

After the first chapter of my series of unfortunate event, I am almost afraid to chronicle the rest; just in case I am tempting fate.

The loo and the septic tank appear to be working perfectly; for the time being at least. Jean from the English Arm Chair Abroad left a comment on the last post about the possibility of a good blackberry crop as a result of our overspill. I must put this into perspective and say that we have in fact had a rather good crop of blackberries over the past couple of years, and a spectacular crop of damson's too. I wonder, does this tell anything about the fertility of the soil?

Getting back to our string of disaster's; I am pleased to announce that all my hard work at the computer was rewarded by the delivery of a brand-spanking new dishwasher before 10.00 am on Monday morning. The funny thing about my old Zanussi model dying is that the kitchen has never been so clean. The two boys had been threatened with co-operation over the washing up or else! The or else bit was in relation to me refusing to order any kind of automated help for the kitchen unless they got on with it in the meantime; I think that's only fair, don't you?

Chapter Two has been briefly outlined in the above paragraph's & my last post, so I think I will now skim over to Chapter 3 which ties in quite nicely with all of the previous, present and future chapters! This is due to the fact that I rely rather too heavily on my mobile phone for communications of all types.

A little while ago I upgraded; I asked for the cheapest, nastiest, most basic phone in the shop and I am afraid that I got what I asked for. The contract was renewed but, I have a feeling that I downgraded regarding the phone itself, and the moral of that story is be careful of what you ask for...

The sim card capacity on this new phone of mine appears to be limited; the result being that several of my numbers are now stored on the phone's memory. That's all well and good until such time as you transfer phones and lose most of your precious numbers like I did. To be honest, I can probably retrieve a few of them by simply reinserting my sim card into the old phone, but I am simply too busy to be bothered with this.

The advantage of this is that even if lose the new phone which hasn't got lots of numbers on it; I will be able to use my old one which has. Actually, that is almost what happened at the weekend.
Having attended a function on Saturday afternoon I discovered that it HAD mysteriously disappeared.

You can imagine the consequences of that, especially as the delivery man for the dishwasher had instructions to ring me an hour before he arrived - on the mobile phone!