Don't take your washers and dryers for granted

As many of you know, we have these little (and I mean little) contraptions in the UK that are combination washers/dryers. In theory, it's not a bad idea. You put in a load of laundry, choose the setting, and four and half hours later (literally) you've got clean and "dry" clothes. However, this approach breaks down in two key places. Firstly, the clothes are not even close to dry when you take them out, secondly, you can only dry about 3 pairs of socks and a couple tshirts at a time without overwhelming the machine. Heaven forbid if you try to clean sheets or a towel. Then you're talking at least a week of clothesline drying time.

Ours has gotten increasingly worse over the past few months and with the threat of piles of dirty baby clothes on the horizon we decided to bring in an expert and see if the problem could be fixed. The solution that was recommended was that we put a load of clothes in the washer (not too many!), then when it's done we take half of it out, dry the half that's left in, then when that's done, put the other half back in to dry. Now, I won't even begin to think about how long this would all take, or the fact that you have to change the load of wash three times before it's done, but I am curious what you do with the half of the clothes that you take out of the washer soaking wet?

So, with that solution obviously not going to work, we are reverting to drying even smaller loads of laundry in each go round. If anyone needs ONE pair of socks and A t-shirt washed and dried, let me know!