Farce and pathos.

So....you may remember that on our last trip to Brisbane we bought a new washing machine only to bring it home and find that the door would not lock and therefore the machine would not start. We rang up about it and were passed onto a repair team who told  us that they could not visit until August 2nd which, when we rang, was a wait of over a week.On Monday we received a phone call from the repairers to say that they were sorry but they would not be visiting on the 2nd as the repairman had done something to his back and needed to go to Toowoomba but they would visit us on the 3rd instead(today).Today is the first day of Will's working week and normally he heads off at 4.30 am to make cheese but today he hung around to wait for the repairman to come. We were told we were first on the list and so we were expecting them about 9.30am.At about 9.15 am I went out to set the washer up. Here at Frogknot is is not just a case of pressing a button. I started 'Jenny', turned on the water and got out the extension lead and plugged the new washer in. It was as I was doing the latter that a thought suddenly popped into my head....'What if the new washer was not drawing enough power for the door to lock properly?'Sometimes, in the past with the old washer, I have had to switch on some internal lights for the inverter to draw more power before the old machine works properly.We had not done that when we first tried the new machine.I mentioned this to Will and we quickly tried switching on something else as well as the machine to see what happened.....and the door on the new machine locked and the washing cycle started! We stopped it and tried again to make sure it wasn't a flue and sure enough it did it again.Quickly Will rang the repair firm and told them what had happened and apologised for our mistake. They were in the area for other jobs too so they had not had a wasted journey from Warwick.We had so much washing to do as it has been nearly two weeks since our last wash, but at last we had a working washing machine. I filled it up with the first load and  switched it on and it started to fill...but then as the drum tried to make its first rotation the power went off.We tried hooking the washing machine just up to Jenny but she couldn't cope and we tried hooking it back up to the inverter as before but it still couldn't cope....there was just not enough power in the batteries. On top of all this, even though it had done it for us earlier that morning, the door was now not locking again!We couldn't understand it and could not believe that this was happening. Will thought we might need a new inverter as the one we have is very old. Perhaps we need a stronger generator? We knew that there was nothing wrong with the machine and that it was a power problem but we were dismayed that what we thought was a more efficient machine...needed more power!Will had to go to work...he had 7 hours of cheesemaking ahead of him and it was now 10.30 and he normally starts at 5.00 am.After he had gone I managed to manoeuvre Dulcie's old machine back out of the shed and next to the new machine on my own. I had to take the weight of it on my knees, lean back and take little Japanese Geisha steps to get it to where I wanted it.I managed three loads of washing today. It was not easy as it is a miserable day here and the Sun is off partying somewhere else and so the solar panels were not helping Jenny at all but somehow I coaxed those  three loads out of the old machine and it is now all hung up under the verandah.I texted Will to tell him. He was pleased but had more bad news....The gate is broken....the post which holds the cross bar up has split under the weight. We will have to replace it.We are not having much luck lately.