New Washing Machine

I think the worst part of having had to shift house nearly three weeks ago was losing our washing machine, which belonged to our former house. Granted, it wasn't the world's greatest washing machine. In fact, I have to admit that I often grumbled against it. It didn't really have an agitator so much as just a 'swisher' which moved the load of wash gently clockwise, then anti-clockwise, and then back again. And it totally lacked any kind of lint filter, even the old-school kind that one has to clean by hand. Consequently, I had to utilise 'wash balls'--small plastic spheres wrapped in a kind of velcro yarn that managed to remove at least some of the lint out of the water.

Still, it was better than hand washing. I know because I had clothes to wear yesterday only because of hand washing. I'd washed every unclean item I had the day we moved out with the hope that we would find a washing machine for our new place the week after moving in. We didn't. That was sort of OK because that Saturday I was able to go to the laundromat and do a load of wash. I could only do one because laundromats are rare and therefore expensive in Australia. Virtually everyone owns a washing machine. Even the smallest flats have laundries in them. Canberra, with a population of over 330,000 people, has only three small laundromats. And the one we went to charged $4.20 just to do one small load of wash. Twenty minutes of drying was another $4.00.

This one load of whites got me through another week, but I wasn't able to make another trip to the laundromat this last weekend because of having gone to Sydney to attend the temple. And one can't use a laundromat here at just any old time because, like virtually all businesses, they only open 9 til 5 on weekdays and a few hours during the day on weekends. As a result, I found myself Monday night washing out a few items by hand in the laundry basin. Fortunately, having lived in Indonesia, hand washing laundry is not a new concept for me. I may find it tiring, but I know how to do it.

A ward member actually gave us an old washing machine a week and a half ago, so that should have solved our problem, but it didn't. First the machine wouldn't turn on at all, so we had to ring Bro Smith back and ask him about fixing it. I spent two hours helping him (and learnt more about washing machine controls than I'd ever known before) in order to get it to start. I was excited to use it, but Keiran put in a load first, and that's when we discovered that it leaked water, both from the drain hose and from the pump housing.

I saw Bro Smith this morning when I took the kids to seminary, so I mentioned to him that the washing machine he'd given us--and which had once fallen off a truck--was unfortunately too crook to use. He told me we could take it back to his place sometime and apologised that it hadn't worked out.

Then, later this morning, he rang to tell me that his granddaughter had a newish washing machine that she was willing to lend us until she moves into a more permanent place. This was incredibly exciting news. I was working on my research, but I took a break, and Daniel and I immediately hitched up Troy's trailer, returned the old machine, and picked up this newer one. Since it's in good condition--having never fallen off a truck--it should work beautifully.

And, if all it does is swish the laundry back and forth in the water without removing any of the lint, I suspect that I won't complain.