We have a dishwasher! It was finally installed today, after it sitting in the kitchen for 3 days. Ever since we moved in here we wanted to get the Fisher and Paykel double drawers. So we went out a couple of weekends ago, and got a price somewhere, and then went to another place to see if they could do better.

The guy there was an absolute tosser. We asked what their best cash price would be, and he asked what the best price was that we’d got so far. We didn’t want to tell him, because we didn’t want to give him any hints. He then just stood there grinning at us, not making a move to give us a price. We just looked back at him, and M said that he didn’t think it was very ethical to give him the price of the other place, and he just wanted to hear what price they could do it for. This continued for a few minutes of the guy trying to get our best price out of us, and us saying that we weren’t going to tell him.

I was getting really pissed off, and I came this close to saying that if he didn’t want to give us a price then that was fine, we’d just go back to the other place, but I chickened out because I wasn’t sure whether M would follow me out the door. I would have looked a bit of a twit if I’d flounced off in a huff, only to have M still be standing there waiting for a price! He said afterwards that he would have come with me, but at the time I didn’t want to take the risk.

When he finally realised that we weren’t going to do his job for him, he went off and got a price, which wasn’t as good as another place we’d been to. So we said that it wasn’t as low, and he tried to get the other price out of us again. Grrr. Anyway, the guy said that the F&P drawers weren’t very good, as they had them in the kitchen at the store, and there had been a lot of times he’d open the drawers to see cockroaches swimming around in the bottom of the machine, as they could get through the gaps.

Great, not only was this guy a dickhead, but he was saying that the dishwasher we’d had our hearts set on for two years was crap! So we left there feeling very frustrated and disappointed. When we got home M looked up the drawers on the net to see what people thought of them, and found bad review after bad review, with people saying that they were unreliable and often broke down etc. So we ended up abandoning the F&P dishdrawer idea, and got a Miele instead.

We’re very pleased with it (at least, for the hour that it’s been installed), but we didn’t get any dishwashing tablets/powder with it - ripped off! But we finally have our dishwasher and it’s so quiet! The installation guy did a test run when he’d installed it to make sure everything was ok, and we could hardly hear it. Eeeexcellent.

The other thing I am yay about at the moment is that our holiday is booked! Well, M’s flights are booked (we’re using frequent flyer points for his tickets). OK, most of his flights are booked :) Once we have confirmation of his booking we’ll send the details to the travel agent who will book my tickets and our accommodation.

We’re going to London, Dublin (and hiring a car to drive around Ireland), Paris, New York, New Orleans, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY! I’m so excited! What’s weird is that my boss is going to be in London at the same time we are. D’oh - we just can’t get away!