Are Friends Electric?

I'm in the dumps; well and truly bogged down with the blues, ennui and lack of interest. Frankly I couldn't be bothered about anything.

Things have lost their zing. I haven't even bothered to look at my blogger mates for a week now, that's how serious thing are.


The last week has been the week of inanimate objects getting animate and getting their own back. First, the cooker. The fan heater went splat, so a call to my friendly electrician and that was righted in a wink of an eye. Seeing that the venerable Neff was receiving such close attention, the washing machine decided to have a long sulk and refused to spin. Another call to the electrician resulted in a free visit but no fix - the control panel ( the brains) had had a stroke I was told. That left us washing machine less for a week. Oh, how we have become dependent on the bits of metal and wires that litter our lives!

Sunday morning we took four large bags of assorted clothes to the launderette. My, beautiful it was not. We were lucky, none of the machines were in use so we went for a simultaneous wash  and spin off with 4 machines hammering our smalls as one.

Industrial scale washing machines know nothing of soft, delicate silks and cottons, or cold washes that gently caress the dirt out of ones jimjams or knickers. It was the equivalent of 20 washer women smashing my shirts against rough stones and then walking over the innocents in bovver boots. I despaired of seeing any of our clothes in one piece.

One blessing: the wash was quick. Our home machine would take 2 hours to bathe our soiled clothes in a gentle splish slash at a comfortable 30 degrees C, before winding up the spin. The monsters at the launderette took less than 30 minutes to wring cries of submission from our towels and tee shirts.

In the meantime the lap top is displaying all the signs of terminal decline, along with the desk top which is so slow the curser blinks once an hour. Switching on the computer before having a bath in the morning means that half an hour later it has only just booted up.That and the encryption for the wireless router which  mysteriously will not let my notebook log in. Life at the moment is like the wires at the back of the computer - going somewhere but hell if I know where.

On Tuesday the electrician arrived. Had the washing machine on the operating table and in no time had diagnosed the problem: not a buggered control panel but a buggered pump, a spare of which he so happened to have in the van. A lecture on the perils of hard water and the con that is Calgon later, I was £89 lighter but infinitely happier.

Someone's coming to night to review Coidan's computers and a possible general upgrade and migration. I have offered him a bottle of non alcoholic beer.

That is what we're on now. Seven days without alcohol. What a strain! It's alright until about 7 pm when the pangs kick in, get to 8 pm and things return to normal and we both come down from the ceiling. So I ordered loads of non alcoholic beer - you know the stuff that thinks it's going to be beer but at the last minute has the alcohol squeezed out of it. I have to say that what we've tried so far is very good. Has the taste of real beer and has the meatiness that other non alcoholic drinks (Coke, Tizer, Iron Bru) don't have. Our experiment with non alcoholic wine was disastrous: the stuff was like unfizzy Ribena and even at £3 a bottle was a total rip off.

After my visit to the nurse last week and her relaxed view on the risks of drinking whilst taking my medication, I looked at a load of web sites: especially one dedicated to Psoriasis. The forums were littered with poor souls like me who desperately wanted to continue to drink but weren't sure of the consequences.

The view wasn't unanimous; but the overwhelming opinion was that mixing the drug and alcohol was risking your liver. So I decided that I'd stick to my original plan of not imbibing (My darling wife is offering support by also turning tee total) .

Could that be why life seems less cheery now? By way of a change some pictures of the allotment.


Comments

Steve said…
No technology. No alcohol.

You may as well live in a yurt.

God, I feel depressed now.
Do y'all have an apothecary with Cortizone 10? That will ease up the Psoriasis (and the itching, etc.)

When my appliances go south, I'm instructed by the Evil Twin to find a store with something in stock to be delivered the next day. That man wants clean laundry. clean dishes, clean whatever - no matter his cost. When our washer shat the bed about 7 years ago, I had to drive an hour away and have my dad bring his truck to haul the new washer home. :::sigh:::
Marginalia said…
Dear Steve, thanks for cheering me up.
Marginalia said…
Dear ETW, thanks for the advice. I agree about being without white goods. Life stinks when they go awol.
The Sagittarian said…
Well, I'm told that people who don't drink live longer but I'm certain it just FEELS like they live longer! It's almost a compulsory thing down this way for us, having been booted out of our house now and camping in a norman-bates-style motel...

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