My appliances are ganging up on me again in The View from the Terrace

My appliances are ganging up on me again. The pretty purple vacuum, that Hubby produced from his shed when the other one died, expired in a cloud of smoke on the landing this morning, leaving behind a pile dirt that I had to tackle with a dustpan and brush as I no longer had a working vacuum. I did ask Hubby if he had another one somewhere in the depths of one of his sheds but he hasn’t. I am going to buy one on Amazon this afternoon. I will probably get the updated version of the last one as it was only £62.95 and, after checking my account, I realise it has lasted three and a half years. That is pretty good going considering that we have been doing house revovations and I know Tony has been vacuuming rubble without picking out the larger bits.

The ceramic non stick coating on one of my smart new red saucepans is already starting to come off. That is not good and I have emailed the seller to complain but if they offer a refund I don’t relish packing it up again and sending it back. The pans are obviously not dishwasher safe even though the description said they were. I am undecided whether to keep the other pan and wash it in the sink as it is very pretty but the whole idea of having a dishwasher is to avoid washing up isn’t it? The new red microwave and the immersion heater are still working fine - so far!

I am now having trouble with another tooth. It had gone highly sensitive and aches a little sometimes. My appointment to have the other one out isn’t until the end of January so I rang the dentist on Friday and they have fitted me in for an emergency appointment tomorrow morning to assess the other tooth. I do hope she can fix it and, if so, can do it right away. We are going to Stratford on Tuesday to see the Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and I really don’t want anything to spoil that, we have been looking forward to it. The last time we went was 36 years ago before we had any of the children. We are staying overnight and will spend the next day looking around the town, maybe make a start on the Christmas shopping and visit Shakespeare’s birthplace, that’s another thing we did on that other visit.

Tony went up to Birmingham with his girlfriend Justeen on Black Friday. They have done almost all of their Christmas shopping. They also visited the German Christmas market. I would love to go there on Wednesday after our night in Stratford but Hubby hates driving in cities. It was difficult enough to get him to go into Coventry last month. Birmingham is much bigger and we don’t know our way around by car at all. Years ago we went to visit my Uncle Fred who lived there and even he said it was a difficult city to drive into as all of the roads seem to go either underneath through tunnels or over the top and he usually ended up on the other side! So I think maybe we will stay in Stratford.

The Daily Mail are giving away a free Christmas tree, well you have to pay £9.99for delivery but it’s a 4-5 foot Nordmann fir, so I ordered one. Now I really must make a start on my cards and presents!