Yesterday morning I was sat in the kitchen with my four year old daughter on my lap. I was humming a nursery rhyme and I was becoming increasingly hypnotized by the slow spinning of the washing machine. Round, round, gush, gush.
We recently moved house, and for the past two weeks we had been trying different settings with the washing machine, but it kept overheating the clothes – even when we put it onto a cold wash. It wasn’t the newest of mashines so probably needed replacing at some point.
I was in a complete daze, singing ‘Hey diddle diddle’. The washing machine span more.
Round, round, gush, gush, gurgle, gurgle, the boiler roared.
Then again,
Round, round, gush, gush, gurgle, gurgle, the boiler roared.
‘Look Dada’ said my daughter. ‘The washing machine fills up with hot water from the boiler’.
I shook myself out of my daze and watched.
Round, round, gush, gush, gurgle, gurgle, the boiler roared.
Sure enough the boiler roared every time the washing machine sucked in hot water. But washing machines heat their own water. It must be connected to the wrong pipe!
The water was hot in the machine because there was hot water going into it!
—
As with many things, we often look for the problem where we expect to find the solution.
Someone slightly removed from the situation can often spot the problem because it’s so obvious. Even a four year old.
