Not being the proud owner of a washing machine I have to do my smalls by hand in the sink and take my sheets, towels, shirts and certain other things to the local launderette for a service wash (cut rate for Old Age pensioners on Mondays!).

Living alone I just couldn’t justify the cost of buying a machine because they all seem to be ‘family size’ jobs, a slight case of overkill in my case. I did once find a small one on the internet designed for batchelors and people on their own but the price was about half as much again as a family size one. I suppose that manufacturing costs would be higher because not many were made. It was out of my price range anyway.

But I digress. This week I packed my grubby washing into a bin bag and took it to the Launderette. I collected it later in the day and it was all nicely folded and packed neatly into my bin bag.

When started to unpack it I noticed that it hadn’t been dried as well as it usually was. In fact it was still quite damp. Never mind, I thought, I can put it over the clothes horse to dry.

Then I noticed that the towels and sheets were still grubby (and damp). When I examined my shirts I saw that the inside of the collars and the cuffs were still dirty. I thought “I’m not having this, especially as the price had gone up in line with the VAT increase!”

I took one of the towels and a shirt straight back to the launderette and confronted the girl who served me and told her I was very unhappy with the service. Her reply was, “The manager has told us that due to the increase in the water rates, the electic bill and the high cost of the washing powders we have to reduce the washing and drying time in order to make it cost effective”.

Cost effective my arse! They also put the pensioners rate up to £11 from last week when it was £8 per load. I know the VAT went up to 20%, but these charges are just way over the top.

I think in future I will join my neighbours and go with them to their free “launderette”!