namnsdag - Rikard

Today is Richard's 'name day' in Sweden. Well, ok, it is 'Rikard' on the calendar today, but that is close enough for us.

As many may know, Richard is a laundry enthusiast. That is not to say that he thrives in making things ready for the wash, but rather, he is quite profficient and takes some pride in doing the wash.

Sadly, we have had some serious issues with our washing facilities of late.

In short - the washing machines seem to be selectively eating holes in all of my merino wool shirts, every once and a while taking a bite out of a cotton item for good measure.

Unhappy monkey hoodie

Often they are small holes, but sometimes the machine is clearly a tad starved for merino fibers.

Richard is fit to be tied with this series of events and feels terrible about ruining his nearly perfect record for casualty-free laundering. I can't really hold these against him, even if I do feel suspicious about the fact that it is only my merino shirts that seem to come back shredded.

This week added insult to injury: Richard arrived to the laundry room for our weekly 4-hour laundry slot to find that one machine was out of service.

Some may remember a while back when Richard bought me quite a lovely bicycle saddle for my namnsdag. I really wanted to get him something nice this year. So, putting it all together, late this aft I bought my dear love a washing machine!

With a capacity of 6 kg, you can wash large amounts of clothing at once.  It has 16 custom programs to suit the launderers needs, including: AntiAllergy, Antistain, Eco Cotton, Synthetic Eco, Eco Fast 30 ', Wool Platinum. With the 'Eco Cycles' design this machine uses half the energy and helps protect the environment! What more could a boy want?!?

The cool kind, with magnets not a central aggitator -- there should be no more laundry trauma now.


Of course, the purchase of the machine left a small problem: where in the world could we put said washing machine?

And so, I did what any good wife would do, and bought him a house to go with his new washing machine.

Ok, it was only half a house  - we are the right side.
The audi was not included.

We are the left side, looking from the back.
With two apple trees and a lovely raspberry patch!

Move in day is March 30th -- we are so excited! And feel free to test us on our new lexicon of Swedish terms for building materials, mortgage and insurance specific jargon. More importantly, there will be a fine guest room in the new place and I am sure Richard will be glad to give you a demo of his washing machine if you come to visit.