Would You Believe It?

We have all the kitchen units fitted, The fridge freezer is up and running, the microwave is in full working order, the gas hobs working and water connected to the sink. The tumble dryer is working sweetly and the washer was working sweetly.The observant among you will have noticed I used the word "was", and with very good reason.

For three or four washes the washing machine has done what has been asked of it, despite an extremely noisy bearing.........

Then on the next wash disaster struck. From somewhere under the washer a large pool of water appeared. This wouldn't have been too bad if the tiles had been fitted on the floor and they had been sealed to the sink unit end.... but they weren't!

Water managed to seep under the facing end panel of the sink unit and slowly soak upwards. Soon what had been a straight symetrically sided panel began to change shape. The water had caused the panel to swell.

I had only just taken a spare panel back two or three days before, and just received a cheque in the post as a refund. Now the thought that sprang to my mind was - I wonder if they still have the panel I returned to Skipton?

A hasty phone call ascertained that it was still in the Skipton branch, so a speedy trip to Skipton to pick up the panel was the next thing on the agenda!

The washer service engineer called today - luckily he had had a cancellation, otherwise we would have been waiting for him until Wednesday at the soonest! A repair was carried out, and once again all is well - well as well as can be expected in the Bentley household at the moment.

I have floor and wall tiles ordered and they should be in stock on the 29th June. So a hasty call to Kevin (our local painter and decorator) and Lady Luck was smiling on me, He had had someone supply him with the wrong keys to a house he was due to decorate, so he couldn't gain access. Two minutes later he was in our kitchen, with suggestions for the colour matching and all things being equal he should be starting painting the walls and new kitchen doors on Thursday!

Bobby, our joiner should be arriving again on Wednesday to make a kitchen table to match the work surfaces, fix skirting boards, hammer a hole in the pantry wall for the vent for the tumble dryer, and various assorted odds and ends. Oh! - and put a new end panel on the sink unit base!

Having moved most of the beakers, cups, saucers, plates, bowls, knives, forks, spoons and some of the food back into the kitchen, we now have this wonderful game called "Hunt the Beakers", with exciting variations such as "Hunt the Breakfast Cereals", "Hunt the Sugar" etc. Breakfast time will never be the same again!