I learnt a lot yesterday. I learnt that if you put a screwdriver though the skin on your hand it bleeds a lot, and I learnt that if you don’t work out exactly what you need from the shop then you go back three times! It all started with my mistress trying to repair a lamp for James. Apart from using a screwdriver there was no apparent way to prise the back off. Unfortunately in trying to use the screwdriver, rather than it having the desired effect, it slipped and went into my mistresses finger leaving blood dripping on the kitchen floor. The lamp is now her sworn enemy, remains broken and now has no one to try to make it better. Still that was not as bad as the washing machine. All that was needed, apart from larger muscles, was a bit to fit on the end of a pipe. Unfortunately, neither my mistress nor I knew what the ‘bit’ was called. My mistress measured the pipe and decided it was 5cm across and went to the DIY store in search of a suitable ‘bit’. Now I don’t like to question my mistress’s ability to use a tape measure but it turns out plumbing connections only come in 40mm or 32mm and not 50mm. How she had measured it as 50mm is beyond me but then I can’t hold the tape measure so I probably shouldn’t criticise. After half an hour of looking along the shelves she found a packet that claimed it was for the very purpose of fitting a washing machine so she bought it and drove home. Going back to the subject of her ability to measure, it was 40mm and was too big. Work it out for yourself! So she drove back to the store to buy a smaller one. They don’t come in smaller ones, so she decided to buy a special connector that reduces the size of a pipe. You have probably guessed but on coming home, she now had two pieces that didn’t fit the hole and didn’t fit each other. That last bit you would like to think she could have worked out in the shop. By this time it was 10pm so the washing machine connection has been delayed until today.