Narrowboat Alacrity

Having just read Lesley K’s post about her new washing machine not fitting on Caxton reminded me about when I changed the fridge on Alacrity. The original fridge was an Electrolux RM360 gas, 12 volt and mains which was seriously losing its will to chill.

Taking careful measurements of where the new fridge was to go and of the size of the front door I visited John Lewis in Welwyn Garden City. Tape measure in hand I measured up all their fridges……………(The staff were very helpful to an obvious lunatic muttering and measuring) and yes I found one, a Lec, perfect fit……………………..

Guess what I hadn’t taken into account……….the curvature of the bow, on Alacrity the front door is set to the right and not in the center………………………Oops…….every way we tried to get the fridge through the door the bow curvature caused it to catch on something.!!!! the air turned blue even the ducks blushed………….later after removing the front door, the door frame and some interior trim we got it in. There was only just enough space to tape some paper to protect the paint.

I also nearly came unstuck last week when I was laying the new oak plank floor…… space above fridge 15mm oak plank thickness 18mm. the result was I had to remove two wooden support battens and replace them with angle brackets to keep the ventilation space………….I told Jo that I had calculated for that……and yes, she didn’t believe me either……………someone was looking down on me favourably that day…….

I found an odd sock after this mornings wash………never mind I’ll just mate it up with the odd one I found last week………………..No I won’t…………..it’s gone missing aswell…….Upon interrogation SWMBO addmitted that she had found an odd sock in my draw and had humanly disposed of it in the bin.

I only ever buy the same black socks (M&S) so I can match up the ineviatable “odd sock” or when one becomes to holey, a new mate can be found  (Its the Yorkshireman in me).

The odd sock saga seems to be an affliction we all suffer, an equal number of socks go in the washer but an unequal number come out. Is the washing machine something other than a washing machine, is it a portal to a parallel universe, with whom we swop socks on alternate weeks, is it possible that we don’t actually lose a sock but gain one………….Do people in parts of the world who don’t use washing machines lose socks?

The UK’s population is around 61 million people and if each loses one sock every time they do laundry the mind boggles………………………..