Not the afternoon I'd planned

It was one of those glorious Autumn afternoons on Sunday so we decided to have a late brunch sitting in a corner of the garden that is a real suntrap.

I'm sipping my coffee in a post-bacon-and-egg haze, and contemplating a doze under the Sunday papers, when I hear a "sploosh". The kind of sploosh that sounds like a bucket of water being thrown. Being otherwise occupied with dealing with my full tummy, my brain took a little while to register what it had heard. I looked at Himself and said rather lazily

"That didn't sound good"

"No"

"I'd better go and have a look"

"Yes"

So I sauntered into the cottage to be greeted by a stream, nay a veritable river, of water pouring out of the kitchen door. The post-bacon-and-egg haze rapidly disappeared to be replaced by fast-thinking and action! Splashed over the the machine and turned it off, yelled for Himself to come and help. Which he does. Slowly, as he thinks I'm exaggerating.

I'm not. There is water pouring out of every available oriface of the washing machine. Apart from the oriface at the back of the machine out of which water should be pouring.

Dilemma. The machine obviously can’t drain any water but it is full of water and too heavy to move. We have no option but to crack open the door and try to catch as much water as we can in a bucket. It works, after a fashion, but not without adding to the pool of water on the kitchen floor. We then manhandle the machine outside to get a better look as it's obviously blocked somewhere.

"Well, it's not working is it so we've nothing to lose by taking that bit off and seeing if we can unblock it" says I.

So he removes that bit of the machine. Nothing happens and we scratch our heads and then remove something else.

Ahhh. That'll be the problem then. The filter's blocked.

The problem is with the chenille throws I bought for the sofas in the cottage. They are supposed to be dry-clean only. Well bugger that when you've variously got three or four dogs about the place. You can't be doing with dry clean only so everything goes in the machine regardless of what it says on the label. I've got away with it up to now but this time it's come back and bitten me on the bum, so to speak, and the throws have shed all their chenille inside the washing machine.

One washed filter and several buckets of water later the machine is as good as new and my kitchen floor is lovely and clean! Every cloud has a silver lining as they say.