A hot summer day

Another hot day - the gardens are really starting the suffer now, despite watering. All the London parks are very dry with brown grass and looking unattractive . 

I have had such a frustrating day because of my broken washing machine. Due to some new directive from head office in Germany, Miele now have quite a backlog of time slots where they can offer repairs/services. Whereas it used to be a 2-3 day wait, from the beginning of the year that has increased significantly. When I phoned first thing this morning, I was told the soonest someone could get to me would be 16th July. After I politely told them how disappointed I was, especially after being a loyal Miele customer for over 30 years, how our machine was top of the range, one year old machine, still under warranty, so I did not expect to have faults with it at this stage of its life - they suddenly found me a cancellation for today. The technician came and hats off to him, he was very polite, knew exactly what he was doing - and found there was a broken fan belt which surprised him very much, given the model and age of the machine. The bad news was that although its a very simple repair and they have the new fan belt in stock, the next time a technician can get to me is 23 July. There is no way we can wait 3 weeks with no washing machine , not in our large household and with everyone at home now - I usually do 1-2 loads per day! I phoned Miele and informed them that I would no longer be buying their products and said I was sure many other customers felt the same way - they confirmed they have lost many customers now due to the changes made from head office  - it doesn't make sense.

No amount of apoplectic raging will change the situation, and in the greater scheme of things it ruined my day awfully but its nothing compared to the bad days faced by other people in the world. It's a silly 1st world problem but still so annoying!

I have contacted a local technician who works on Miele and will see if he can get a fan belt and fix it (but he is away on holiday at the moment) - and we are also considering buying a 2nd much cheaper basic washing machine as we often could do with two machines given the amount of laundry my family generates!

I also had a frustrating time trying to sort a problem with our summer holiday - it has been going on for weeks and I don't want to bore anyone here with the details but I ended up having several phone calls to the tour operator today and it is still not resolved, although they promise they will do it....Its a 5 star holiday and we have been getting 2 star service since we paid for it, typical isn't it.

The most frustrating thing is I planned to visit the lavender farm today, I was so looking forward to going there,  but that just did not happen with having to go to the laundromat and do two wash loads besides all the other chores that normally happens on a Monday morning.

Tomorrow hopefully will be better - I am going the the RHS Flower Show at Hampton Court, and the laundry will just have to wait!