Wash Day

This block of flats has a laundry room in the basement with 3 washing machines and 4 tumble dryers. (We are not permitted to dry washing outside.) You may not use more than one washing machine at a time, so as you can imagine, it can sometimes be difficult to find a machine available. Yesterday my laundry bin was full, so I needed to do both a dark wash and a white wash. I trekked down to the laundry to find to my delight that the new machine with a bigger drum was available, so in went the bulky white wash to a short but hot programme, and then returned to my flat. Half an hour later I returned to the laundry room to find my machine on its last spin. I then was a little bit naughty and put my less bulky dark wash into the machine next to it for a “once worn” quick wash and almost immediately transferred the first wash to the new, bigger and better tumble dryer.

I returned to my flat for brunch and half an hour later returned to the laundry to find the dark wash ready to spin and put in the dryer. A further half hour or so later, both washes were dry, so I folded them and brought them upstairs to put them away.

All this before 2pm when it was time to go to the residents lounge for a cup of tea and wait for the milk man to come for his money. (Yes, we get doorstep milk here – and he even can deliver my organic milk!)

So yesterday was a really good day; usually I hate a wash day as it can be really difficult to get a machine free, and I hate when I have to work on with it until evening.

I can, however, tell you of a rather funny story about this. A demand came from TV Licencing for "Flat 5". Now we have no Flat 5. The house manager brought it to me as a query and I said I would look into it. Eventually I worked out that "Flat 5" was the laundry room. So I phoned TV Licencing and told them so; however they were still insistent and I kept saying there was no television in the room, only 3 washing machines and 4 tumble driers. So they said they would come to inspect the "flat". They told me they would write to "3 washing machines and 4 tumble driers" to arrange an appointment.

Well, after I stopped laughing, I managed to convince the guy that it was not a staffed launderette (where someone might watch a television) but merely a facility for residents to come and do their own washing (and what's more, get out of there as quickly as possible.)

Okay, so he accepted that, but he told me that they would send out another letter demanding payment in 2 or 3 years time to ensure circumstances had not changed!

You could not make it up.