Running repairs

Initially this blog was supposed to be exclusively about the process of making Baubles, but looking back over the posts so far, it all seems a bit too earnest, somehow. When I think about the blogs I most enjoy reading, it's the off-topic stuff that makes them more interesting to me - glimpses of domestic life, pet stories, sharing of links, even (occasionally) travel pics.
Like this one, written by a Japanese-American woman living in a rural Japanese city. Tanya shows us her quilts, but she also talks about day-to-day life in Japan, giving us fascinating glimpses of a different culture.
Or my friend Susan, a fellow Victorian who can make almost anything entertaining, from the antics of her menagerie to her completely over-the-top Christmas decorating, as well as her knitting and quilting activities.
So I'm diversifying, beginning with a small domestic disaster, and a happy ending.
My washing machine is old. No, I mean really old. I found the original guarantee:
the date is December 1981 - that's over 27 years ago!
It's had a hard life, with more than a few battle scars. Way too old to have any electronic components, it still works just fine.

When I moved house around 10 years ago, the plastic lid got badly cracked. I filled the cracks with Superglue - problem solved..

Last week, something heavy fell on the lid, the cracks came apart, and one corner of the lid broke off entirely. This effectively put the machine out of commission, because there's a small pressure switch behind the lid which makes everything go round, and now there was no pressure on it...

Of course I could have just bought a shiny new machine, with a computer and assorted electronic gizmos, that might last for two or three years at best - but, why on earth would I dispose of a perfectly good machine, with years of life left in it? There had to be a way to fix it.
I Superglued the cracks again, which sorta worked, but it was still pretty wobbly. Pity it wasn't a pair of jeans, then I could put a patch or two on it!

Then I remembered the sheets of plastic someone gave me, which I use for cutting templates. About the same thickness as heavy card, but much tougher. Out came the glue again, I cut a couple of patches, stuck them on, and weighted them down for a few hours.

Voila! Good as new! Now, if it would just stop raining, I'd do some washing...