A real sucker

At the moment, if you visit our house, I will offer (gushingly) to introduce you to the new love of my life. 

Indeed, he might be pottering about in the hallway as you enter.

He is a small robot vacuum cleaner. We did try out some names, but have settled on 'The little chap', said in an affectionate tone.

Hoovering was previously my job. And indeed, I still do the stairs as the robot cleaner has the same limitations as a dalek. 

But thanks to the little robot, I am now freed of the anxiety that my mother-in-law might come calling on a day when I haven't hoovered (most days, in fact).

My friends fear that as a result of this automated home help I may lose muscle tone and become decadent.  I, however, find there is still plenty of housework to be done. The house will now get dusted more often, in theory at least.

No, my only worry is that the robot hoover originates in China. The Chinese now have maps of both my upstairs and my downstairs, information vital to their plan for world domination.

Plus, they now know exactly how much dust there was under our bed, a matter previoisly covered by the official secrets act. 

The Escher car park

Last Friday, we went with Pascoe and Sophie to see Chekov’s The Seagull at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh.

Running low on time, we decided to use a disastrously expensive carpark nearby.  For the price we paid we expected the full service – we should be able to:-

1.      Park the car

2.      Find it still there when we returned

3.      Drive away

The play was excellent – strong performances, atmospheric setting.  We didn’t worry about the car - not with the amount that carpark was costing!

We came out and found the carpark had indeed fulfilled the first two of its three functions. We paid at the machine, emitting a communal gasp as we read the tariff.

But the way we had come in was now shut off with a temporary barrier.  ‘Use other exit.’

‘Where is other exit?’

Pascoe set off on a drive round the carpark, only to arrive back again at the temporary barrier.  He set off once more and after following exit signs more attentively, we still arrived there again. 

We began to wonder if the carpark had been designed by Escher.

Or whether Kafka had written the signage.

We must be missing something in the rain and darkness.

Pascoe set off again, with us all chipping in whenever we spotted a sign, and eventually, by a very circuitous route, we reached the barrier.

But it wouldn’t let us out.  It gave the error message ‘No payment possible.’

‘But we already paid.  Oh boy, did we already pay!’

Pascoe backed out and drove towards the other barrier. This one charged us a further £8 before it would let us out, no doubt a charge racked up for the pleasure of driving round and round a dark wet carpark when all we wanted was to get home.

‘I shall never use that carpark again,’ said Pascoe.

And let us hope he never does!