One if the things I quite like is to have clean clothes. Our new place didn’t have the fittings for a washing machine installed, or any real way to dry clothes. This was a problem. So in the interim we thought we would give a launderette a go, how hard could it be?

The first problem was that launderettes don’t seem to have websites, or be listed anywhere googlable. We eventually found one not too far from us (a car drive still though).

When we went the launderette was unmanned, so we had to figure it out ourselves, I’ve used a washing machine like a thousand times so it should be easy enough. No. It is not. We filled the machine up, picked a setting (this was a random choice since the labels were non-existent), and stuffed it full of cash. Then it started leaking. Ummm. I managed to mega force the door shut so that stopped that problem.

After five minutes of watching the clothes go round we decided that launderettes should have bars, but since this one didn’t that we should go find one elsewhere. But how to know when to come back? This is where I struck upon one of my brighter ideas – I’ll go and ask the chap sitting at the other end of the the launderette how long a washing cycle takes. So I did. And so the chap looked at me, informed me that he had no idea. It very quickly became apparent that he was in fact a tramp, of course he doesn’t know how long it will take. The bar was going to have to wait.

Fifteen minutes later the next dilemma presented itself – the washing finished. Clearly we had picked the ‘cursory attempt at washing’ cycle in our random program picking. Alas given the exuberant prices for doing laundry (we had already spent £8) we had no choice but to accept our fate as wearing only slightly cleaner clothes for the next week.

It was rather soon after this that we bought, and installed, a washer-dryer in our flat (an almost hobo-free zone).