All Kinds Of Hullaboo

Mood: Cheery
Theme Song: “Breathe Me” - Sia (don’t have a good reason for this one, other than I like the song and since it was used at the end of Six Feet Under, it signifies a journey in my mind)

It’s been several days since I’ve had a chance to update this, and I have so much to share! I need to start carrying around a small notebook - a la 1940’s journalists - to record all my thoughts.

The Flat

I’ve successfully moved into my flat (yay!). Hiring the man with a van was a definite good idea. We ended up with two guys - one named Ian, the other nameless (never got his name). Nameless had a mouthful of protruding, rotten teeth. I’m serious. He was like the poster child for bad British teeth. And he was also really a cheery guy, so he smiled. Alot. Ian was the son of the Transport company’s owner (Peter) and he was quite funny. He was a nice looking guy, save for the fact that a good 80% of his body was covered in what looked like gang-affiliated tattoos. I could be wrong, since I don’t know about such things in the UK, but I can’t think of a good reason to tattoo a huge number on your forearm unless its affiliated with something. Anyway they were really nice and did a great job of getting my boxes all into my flat with minimal fuss. They also installed my washer/dryer. Sort of. (More on that later)

I spent this past weekend unpacking boxes and digging out all my stuff. Somewhere between Boston and the UK I’ve lost my makeup brushes, but everything else seems to have arrived damage-free. Including all of my shoes :) !!! Oh shoes, how I have missed thee…  Here are some things I learned this weekend:

• Rubbish is taken very seriously over here. Each week they either put out trash or recycling. (This coming week I believe its trash). For recycling, there are these big plastic bags that you use - these can be picked up free of charge at the local city council office.
  
• If you have extra trash - like oodles of boxes from moving in, for example - you don’t just put it out at the curb and hope for the best. Oops, I’m sorry. It’s called the “kerb” over here. You take it to the local rubbish tip. Yep, that’s what its called - a “tip”. This is a big trash/recycling centre. Its actually pretty cool the way its organized. You pull into this parking lot and on either side are multitudes of dumpsters in different little stations. There’s a station for glass. One for Plastic. One for Cardboard. One for Household Waste. You can even bring your old appliances there and they will dispose of them. I can already tell that something like this would be a huge boon to certain rural areas of America. Then people wouldn’t need to leave old washing machines and the like on Cletus’ front porch anymore.

The Washer/Dryer
As I’ve explained before, people don’t use washing machines and dryers alot over here. This is usually due to space concerns. Personally I think this is proof that Americans are a more civilized society - because who in their right mind wants to spend 4 ½ hours waiting for ONE load of laundy to wash and “dry”?! (I put dry in quotations because nothing comes out of the washer/dryer fully dry like we’re used to in the U.S.; that’s right - no more snuggly warm clothing to slip into on cold mornings.)
Anyway, the men with the van were kind enough to hook up my new washer/dryer. They did a great job, because it worked when I ran a test load. The issue came when I tried to wash actual clothes. Everything was fine, and then BANG! BANG! I ran into the kitchen (where the blasted machine is located - its under the counter like a dishwasher) and it was rocking back and forth and making a terrible noise. I read the instructions and surmised that the machine was probably not level. I adjusted the little legs underneath the machine and restarted it. Everything seemed okay - although kind of loud - and so I left to go out to the store. Imagine my surprise when, upon my return, I saw that the damn machine had danced halfway across my kitchen. Luckily it didn’t get far enough to pull out the hoses. At this point, I was beside myself. The machine was brand new, and I couldn’t understand why it was doing this. I moved it back into position and wedged two pieces of cardboard on either side to stabilize it. About an hour later - BANG! BANG!… and across the room it went. By this point I was nearly in tears. I tried calling the helpline for the product but I was trapped in some automated British phone hell where none of the choices was what I wanted.

This happened on Saturday. Fast-forward to Sunday afternoon. I’m out and about and so I decide to stop by a Comet store (like a Best Buy). I bought my washer/dryer from Comet in Ashford, and so I thought the Comet in Canterbury could help me. I explained my dilemma. At which point the salesman said, “Well, you removed the transport bolts on the back of the machine, right?” Errr…. ummm… probably not. I don’t recall the men with the van doing any such thing. I found out that there were bolts securing the drum so that it didn’t get banged up while being transported and those had to be removed before use - otherwise the machine would not stabilize, and ultimately, it could be ruined. I asked what I needed to remove the bolts and I was told that any spanner would do. After a bit of back and forth, I figured out that spanner = American wrench. (What the Brits call a wrench is something used only by plumbers for some super-secret plumbing purpose.)
I was able to buy myself a spanner at a local store in Canterbury town and after spending a good 45 minutes cursing and throwing things, I was able to get the bolts off the back of the washer/dryer. (I think its fair to say that I was also supremely proud of myself at this point.)

And? Voila! The washer/dryer works just fine. No bouncing. No dancing. No BANGBANGBANG. Just the normal “silent” mode - which is really a low hum sort of like a wasp’s consistent buzzing. Oh, and by “works just fine” I should add that it still takes me 4 hours to wash and dry a set of sheets.

No wonder the Brits drink so much beer. Doing laundry over here is depressing.

More later…