Not Surprised the Vaccuum Didn’t Work

I am officially a housewife or at least that’s what the residency permit I was issued this morning says… however today I have been a plumber (unblocked a bath plughole with a wooden BBQ skewer), an electrician (changed a rickety two pin plug for a sturdy British three pin) and done some vaccuum maintenance. All this alongside several housewifely loads of laundry.

Since we arrived in the Middle East we’ve found that on the plus side the electric supply uses British three pin plugs, however most of the electrical gizmos on sale are European ie two pin. As a result we have acquired an array of adaptors. There are some other solutions, some more safe than others; you can buy socket covers rather like the child proof ones sold in the UK but with two holes to accomodate a two pin plug whilst several of the sockets in our apartment have had something jammed into the top hole! The latter is very annoying when you try to insert a UK plug.

For my part items that are regularly plugged and unplugged like the vaccuum or a phone charger are better off with plugs to match the sockets. For the rest like the kettle or table lamps once it has been plugged in it really doesn’t matter, though investing in a few Terminator multisockets with holes designed to take any style plug makes life easier.

Back to the vaccuum; if you look closely at the picture above you can spot the sticky tape that held the plug together, the tiny screw that was loose inside the plug and the ingenious use of a self-taping screw to hold one a few strands of the wires in place! The other wire was wandering round with the loose screw, how I didn’t electrocute myself the first time I hoovered I’ll never know! And, on completing the cleaning, I opened up the so called “bagless” machine to find a cotton bag jammed solid with fluff, desert dust and hair – presumably the maid’s tasks didn’t extend to emptying the thing. Ah well at least I can only blame myself for shoddy housework!

Tidy Replacement Plug