First, please accept my apologies for the late arrival of this issue of KBzine. Unfortunately I’ve been grappling with that hazard of modern living – running water!
 

Living at the foot of Epsom Downs means my water is incredibly chalky. I get through a kettle a year (goodness knows what’s happening to my insides!) and any clothes I iron invariably end up with limescale streaks which need rinsing off.
 

I’m about to choose a new bathroom but refused to do so until I’d had some sort of limescale inhibitor installed and although one went in a couple of months ago it sprang a leak last week and flooded the room.
 

My (ex) plumber installed a replacement, which he didn’t fit correctly and it leaked. In so doing, he also damaged the stopcock (causing it to leak) and an elbow joint which also started leaking. Although he’s been back most afternoons, each visit he’s made things worse and I’ve spent a great deal of time mopping up and emptying bowls I’d managed to squeeze under the low pipes.

Having awoken to a flooded room yet again this morning, I called a different plumber who sorted the worsening leak this afternoon.
 

Trying to eradicate limescale has proved an expensive exercise but I can’t live with scummy tea and will be trying another solution…
 

As you may imagine, I’ve been rather stressed – so much so, that last evening (when I’d realised that whether my stopcock was open or not, I couldn’t stop the system leaking) I decided I may as well do some washing and found myself sat on a footstool in front of the machine, simply watching the washing churn. I was so tired, it didn’t seem to be an odd thing to be doing and it was quite therapeutic. As I sat there, I started thinking…
 

I’m so busy writing about wonderful innovations in these machines… the myriad of programmes offered, their ability to adjust the volume of water/detergent according to the load’s weight/soiling, eco functions, wool/hand washes, ‘smart’ functions which mean we can turn them on when leaving work so they’re ready to unload when we arrive home… that I forget what a wonderful invention they were.
 

Even without all these functions, they perfectly replicate the hundreds-of-years-old practice of bashing and kneading cloth on the rocks in rivers and lakes, to clean it.
 

That, in itself, is really clever, isn’t it?