Dishwasher has broken

Yes, the dishwasher has broken. The flap where you put the tablet is not operating. I'm sorry to admit this but I'm more upset about it than if a close relative had died. Death is, after all, part of life, but if a dishwasher has been rated as a "Best Buy" by Which, of which I am a member, which costs about ten squillion pounds a month, then you don't expect it to break down ever. So why has it? Perhaps someone should do that; on the back of the success of 'Which?' start an organisation called 'Why?' and charge everyone two million squillion quid a month to be a member of that. And come up with the wrong answer. But it has broken, on this day, of all days - a few days after the 9th anniversary of Princess Diana's death and 5 years after what we Brits call 'September the Eleventh'.

On a more happy note we've been celebrating Phil's Birthday. First of all I bought him exactly what he wanted - some very expensive speakers from a shop which brought the meaning of the word "geek" to a whole new dimension: "Human being unrecognisable to those of the feminine gender". Anyway it worked a lot better than last year when I got him a mish-mash of surprises, a lot of which were things that I wanted. Then we had a stroke of inadvertent luck on Thursday. I had a temper tantrum precipitated by my bike chain coming off and allegededly calming yet painful acupuncture. The only solution to cure me of this which presented itself was an alcoholic beverage at the 'Cat and Mutton' which I was right outside quite conveniently. Phil joined me and it was a great success as they were having an 'Oyster Night' to celebrate the start of the oyster season. So we had a dozen each, with different accompaniments and yum yum yum. We had what could possibly be the last Rose of the season, although judging by the ridiculous heat of today, it will probably be November.

Phil cooked a gorgeous Chicken and Leek Pie on Friday and we entertained his best man, Joel, who didn't come to the car boot sale (none of us did) in the end. Instead we all had quite a lot to drink; 'Delirium Tremons' was the order of the day - the strongest beer in the world apparently. I trapped my finger in the front door, and this pain, combined with what is about ten injections a day at the moment is reducing me to tears, in spite of the acupuncture 'seeds' supposedly preventing this in my ears.