It’s nearly Christmas and you know what that means... a vital and pricey household appliance will break down and you’ll need to replace it.

It will happen and you can’t avoid it. Just hope it happens in time for pre-Christmas delivery.

Over at the Lynne Mortimer and friends household, there has been nothing less than a flurry. It’s been one thing after another.

We had a new chest freezer delivered 10 days ago. This was just one day before the washing machine gave up the ghost. The new machine was delivered six days ago, the same day as the kettle ceased to boil.

When I worked for Volvo cars back in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s there was an item of technical equipment called a Sun tester that the apprentices used to check engine output (I think).

Are there any about still? I think my husband and I should be tested in case our natural electricity is overloading our appliances and causing them to malfunction.

We frequently get small electric shocks from the food display units in Marks and Spencer but I had always assumed that was nature’s way of telling me I didn’t need banoffee pie and double cream.

Perhaps it is more scientific than that and we are incompatible with modern fuse boxes. Maybe we are discharging so much electricity that our domestic equipment can’t cope.

The old freezer, at 25 years old, was probably ready to go to the happy hunting ground (aka the municipal dump). We hadn’t used it much for a couple of years and, when we opened it up, there was only a bag of ice cube in there. It had contained more than one but at some point it must have defrosted and then refrozen to form one big lump of ice.

The washing machine was much more troublesome. It decided to stop working at the exact point it was filled with water. The kitchen floor was covered in buckets, bowls and old towels as we bailed it out.

We went back for some more online shopping. It is times like this you’re glad you didn’t cut up your Barclaycard.

Four days later, the new machine arrived and, you will be glad to hear – our work colleagues certainly were – that we have clean clothes once more.

With the new freezer purring in the garage and the new washing machine whizzing a dark load around at 1,200rpm, we sat down to watch Eggheads on BBC2. We could relax.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” I asked my husband.

“Yes, please.”

I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil... I pressed the switch again... and again and...

I’ll tell you what, I’m going nowhere near the dishwasher.