The washing machine was not broken

... but I thought it was at first.

I had come back from seeing mum at the hospital having put the machine on to wash in the morning before leaving in the car. The load of washing was not finished and there was an error code I did not recognise flashing on the display. The machine's door was locked. The clothes looked wet. I had no idea at what stage in the wash the machine had stopped working.

I turned off the machine and turned it on again. I switched the control to a short spin cycle that includes a quick rinse and pressed "start". Nothing happened. The machine made a groaning noise but did nothing useful. I switched off the machine again and tried to open its door but it would not open. I switched the control to "drain" and pressed "start". Nothing happened. The machine made an odd noise but the clothes did not move.

I eventually got the door open and I took the sopping-wet clothes out and put them in the plastic laundry basket. There were about two inches of dirty, brown water in the bottom of the drum. I got my phone and called the number on the sticker affixed to the front of the machine, for service. I made an appointment for the following Wednesday and went back to finish the lunch I had interrupted to attend to the recalcitrant machine. But I wasn't happy so after finishing my sandwich I went back to the machine and pulled it out from its slot a short distance. I reached into the sink cupboard and disconnected the drainage hose from the spigot on the plumbing fixture. I pulled the drainage hose out of the cupboard under the sink, all the while using my other hand to guide it out from inside.

When it was disconnected and free I reconnected it the way it had been connected before the handyman had the bright idea of threading it through the new hole he had cut in bottom of the sink cabinet. (He had cut the hole to enable the hot-water valve to turn off, something I had been asked to do by a company that wanted to change the hot-water meter.)

After reconnecting the drainage hose to the plumbing fixture through the door of the cupboard - the handyman had thought he was doing me a favour by rerouting the drainage hose through the new hole in the bottom of the cupboard - I switched the washing machine control to "drain" and pressed the "start" button. The machine started to drain. After all the dirty washing water had drained out of it I put the wet clothes back in the machine and switched its control to "rinse and spin" and pressed "start"; the clothes were soon ready to dry, so I separated them into shirts and the rest and began to dry the clothes in the dryer. I called the service company and cancelled the service appointment I had made.