Monday 11 January 2010

I think I broke a mirror. With a black cat.

Well, what an exciting and fulfilling week or two we have had at Loth Towers. It has been fun and games non-stop, I tell you. It's as if every piece of equipment we own has been hanging on, giggling to itself, waiting until the most expensive time of year and then, at some pre-arranged signal, everything went........pfleh.

The toll so far is:
  • one of my old hi-fi speakers died a little - or at least one woofer did. A little investigation confirmed that it was too awkward to replace so we bought new speakers. No big deal.
  • Our old TV (cathode ray tube job, not flat screen) began giving us clear indications that it was in its death throes. Brightness adjusting itself at random intervals, whole set turning itself off and on for no apparent reason and with no human intervention. We sighed and ordered a new TV. A big, shiny flat screen one (can't have it being shown up by the new speakers now, can we?). It is very nice and we are very happy with it.
  • After New Year I tried to start up one of our cars. It wouldn't start. Flat battery - not surprising since we had allowed it to cower in our driveway, shivering and unused, for over a fortnight. After the purchase of a new toolkit (to get the old battery out after hours of trying) and the loan of a battery charger, the battery is declared dead. New battery duly purchased.
  • During the whole trying-to-recharge-dead-battery process, Husband phoned from work to say that our other car (which he had at work) was beeping loudly at him and claiming to have run out of brake fluid. Also, we discovered when we tried to take the boys to school that of the two back doors, one would not open at all and the other one would open but then not shut again. (I suppose this meant that, on average, our car was operating fine but it was a bit useless as an actual mode of transport.) One visit to the garage and a leak in the braking system was found and fixed and one of the two doors fixed. We are still waiting for the bill for that one.
  • The dishwasher has had a bit of a flaky and is now refusing to run unless we tape the door firmly shut with electrical tape. And the spring that holds the door has broken so you have to lower it carefully down by hand otherwise it bounces off the floor with a thwack. I suspect a new dishwasher is in the offing.
  • The DVD recorder took the huff and refused to release a DVD RAM, regardless of how much we begged. Husband had to dismantle the entire machine to get to the DVD drive and prise the disc from its jaws. This involved covering the living room floor with an array of yogurt pots, each containing different kinds of teeny tiny screws, carefully labelled, so that Husband would have an outside chance of being able to put it all back together again. (He did, for he is a unique mixture of handy and thrawn. Useful to have around.)
  • The bulb in the light in the microwave has died. I can live with this.
I am almost scared to turn anything else on, in case there is a loud bang and more cash disappears in a puff of smoke. Still, the new TV is spectacular.

PS On 3rd January, I noted with horror that Sainsbury's are already selling hot cross buns. Words fail me.

11 comments:

  1. Husband here. You missed my watch. It started going crazily fast yesterday (roughly 5-10 minutes per hour) having steadfastly lost a mere 2 minutes per day for years. New watch purchased at lunchtime for use while the old one is in for repair.

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  2. Dude - that sounds like a nightmare!

    My parents had an old dishwasher that they replaced the door spring on several times using ones they cannibalized from dishwashers at the town landfill. It was a small town though. And I think they gave up when they got chased back to the car by a bear once.

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  3. That's worse than the week we had last year in which both vehicles needed new repairs AND new tires, plus the brand new dishwasher stopped working.

    I hope you win the lottery or come into a big pot of money soon. :-)

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  4. Ooh! So I have a site for you and your husband...

    www.repairclinic.com

    It's saved my dishwasher and my microwave, and helped with the stove....

    (good luck! I hate walking softly around my appliances!)

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  5. You might try garlic over the doors, or censing with burning myrtle .... that is, if you are not frozen into your house. I gather you have an eastern Ontario winter over there. I am praying for your pipes. When the ED lived in Glasgow in the late '90's, all the pipes in her suburb, Bearsden, froze up in much more clement temperatures than are being reported at present.

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  6. Buy the hot cross buns. Put them in the freezer, and see how it gets on.

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  7. Apparently you are the Angel of Death, Appliance Division (UK). Maybe we'll meet up at the Reaper's convention someday:

    http://itsjustapie.blogspot.com/2009/01/so-you-still-uh-reap-around-here-do-you.html

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  8. Okay, I here-by pronounce that all evil and turmoil shall leave your home, and family!
    (Sprinkles Fairy Dust Across You and Yours!!!)

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  9. You don't think that Alf the Elf is really Evil Alf, do you? It all seems to have happened since (I imagine) you packed him away in a cupboard...

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  10. At least your computer still works. That's the main thing. Also, "hi-fi" hee hee....

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  11. Eeek!

    It seems that all the appliances deciding to go on strike at once, or in quick succession, is quite common. But still annoying. We had the very same TV problem last year and staggered on for some months before embracing the flat screen (not literally).

    We also still have a DVD player that occasionally refuses to open, or tries to bite the disc in half when we're trying to put it in. But we're not giving up that easily on that one (also being fairly thrawn, and not watching DVDs so frequently that it's a huge problem).

    I am reluctant to get a car (or a dishwasher) because I have a distinct feeling it would all follow the same pattern. At least DVD players don't leak all over your kitchen floor...

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