Witters from Downunder
Created | Updated Nov 5, 2008
Frenchbean returned to Australia from Scotland in 2005 to see whether she'd fallen in love with the country, or simply with her husband, eight years previously.
The answer lies in the fact that she is still there, living on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, from whence she writes her Witters from Down Under. It is a life of hard work made bearable by sunshine, beach exploits and topless driving.
The Post Team are delighted to be able to publish her regular reflections on Antipodean life.
Scrud Wars
Hello Everybody 
This is a cautionary tale.
Never throw away instruction manuals; no matter that they are rarely opened after the initial familiarisation stage, and tend to be totally useless when there is a problem that needs fixing. Hang onto them Just In Case.
I have a drawer full of 'Books of the Words' that have come with everything: from the phone to the fridge and from the telly to the infamous iPod; including one for the washing machine.
A couple of months ago I found that my (ridiculous) white damask linen doona cover came out of the wash with a few dark grey marks on it. So I referred to the book to figure out how to take the machine to pieces and clean it.
Yes, okay, it was the first time in 2.5 years I'd bothered to do it, and there was quite a lot of what I'd loosely define as 'gunk' in the depths that I don't normally see.
It was an unpleasant task; nasty enough for rubber gloves, bucket loads of hot water and a lot of face-pulling. At least there didn't appear to be oil escaping into the washing, which happened with our machine in Cooktown during what turned out to be its last wash.
Clean washer: problem solved. Or so I thought.
It was okay the next wash. But the following one resulted in more grey marks. I repeated the taking-to-pieces-and-scrubbing process; this time unscrewing a bit more of the machine to get at more inaccessible places. More gunk was cleaned out and a kind of angelic feeling of righteous satisfaction settled over me, as I was convinced that such labour must surely have remedied the greyness.
Not a bit of it.
Two weeks ago the grey marks turned to black; enough of it to make me haul the damp doona cover out of the machine and straight into the bath.
There I revisited my washing machine-less student days and tramped up and down on it for 15 minutes. Then I drained and rinsed it with great difficulty and an enormous amount of water flying around the room, before putting it back into a water-filled bath with a tiny bit of bleach in it, to get rid of the remaining persistent stains.
Resorting to the book again with a bit more application, I found that page 23 says:
Scrud1 is the name given to the waxy build-up that can occur within any washer when the fabric softener comes into contact with detergent. If scrud is allowed to build-up in the machine it can result in stains on your clothes.
I'll say it can.
'Clean your machine regularly. (Refer page 29)
2.'
The cure is to fill the machine to the top with hot water (but no washing) and a scoop of washing powder that contains phosphate. You agitate it for 10 minutes and then leave it to soak overnight. After draining the machine in the morning, it's given a full cycle with hot un-powdered water and Bob's your uncle.
Apparently scrud is particularly likely to occur if you use non-phosphate washing powder (which I do) and/or hippydippy organic fabric conditioner (which I also do).
They don't tell you on the labels that they can cause scrud. Pah!
Of course, my lack of washing machine cleanliness over the last couple of years didn't exactly help and has resulted in the full cleaning process being repeated three times.
I am happy to report that the last two white washes have been pristine. I shall be using fabric conditioner very frugally from now on. And yes, I shall clean out the machine as per the instructions in the Book of the Words on a more frequent basis.
It is just as well there's been so much rain recently. All the water that's been used simply to clean the washing machine has been replaced in the tanks already.
You would think that the rain would further encourage the mushroom explosion, but I am relieved to announce that it has been too wet even for them. Hurrah!
For all my food-related frugality I finally resorted to composting mushrooms. In that way, at least they are doing some good. I had run out of any other ideas (and all appetite) for the darned things.
A recent glut of tomatoes has been cooked into a delicious thick sauce (with masses of basil) to use on pizzas. The superfluity of capsicums will go onto the top of the pizzas.
Then there is a wee lull in excess produce, although I can see it is only a matter of time before beetroot, carrots and cabbages become daily harvests. Heaven!
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