What a week.

There have been several times in the last few days when I’ve wanted to disappear under my duvet for a few hours.

At the end of last week, following a couple of chat sessions online with Miele technical support, I booked a visit from one of their service technicians who would hopefully repair our induction hob. 80% of the hob was working perfectly well, though one “zone” didn’t seem to be heating up at all. Whilst this wasn’t important for most of the time, when I wanted to combine two of the zones to create a single larger one (one of the most appreciated features of this hob) only one of them worked. The notebook on my desk charted the progress with increasingly large scribbles!

I explained all of this to the technician, who tried a couple of solutions, eventually fitting a new circuit board and updating the software. A couple of hours later, he’d packed his tools away and as he prepared to leave he came to explain…

Our hob was no longer working at all. Somehow, the new circuit board and/or the upgrade were incompatible and there was no way back. He apologised for signing it off as “Beyond Economic Repair” and said that Miele would be in touch.

It took a while for this news to sink in and it was some time later when we realised all the implications here. No working hob at all? For how long? Oh, and it’s built into our granite worktop…we’re not thinking this will be quickly or easily replaced. And the cost? Probably eye-watering and confirmed by the email that arrived from Miele shortly afterwards with a “suggested replacement” costing £5.5k! We took out the IKEA portable induction ring we have for occasional use and hoped we’d be able to manage with that for the time being.

During the next few days, a conversation with Miele resulted in what we felt was a more reasonable offer for replacing this essential kitchen appliance. I felt their offer also opened up the potential to update and future-proof our hob, rather than simply replace like for like. But looking at the available options, we realised that the dimensions of the current hole in our granite worktop might not be large enough for a replacement. Not only that, but we learned that a hob requires space beneath it as well, so the depth of the opening was also critical. Oh heck.

Over the weekend, we allowed ourselves a little breathing space and allowed all of this to percolate through. It was our wedding anniversary and I had a booking to judge a competition in Brecon, Wales. We’d decided to take the opportunity to have lunch and celebrate our 46 years at a rather good restaurant nearby, once my judging was completed. We set off in the sunshine and enjoyed a wonderful day, leaving all of this “stuff” at home. We thought we’d find some time later to work out the next step with it all.

Last Tuesday, however, we both had dental appointments there in the diary. Though we’ve been perfectly happy with our dental practice for the last twenty years or more, this time they have really messed us about. Firstly, they changed our check up/hygienist appointments, which were made six months ago, to a less convenient times for both of us. We went along with it, thinking that it was the first time this had happened and hopefully it was a one off. However, a couple of days later, I had another call from them because one of my appointments had been made with a dental hygienist who no longer works for the practice. I wasn’t happy, especially since the appointment, rearranged for the second time, was an hour and a half after the first one - not long enough to go home or do anything useful, so I sat in the waiting room and did my knitting.

Passive aggressive? Me? Perish the thought!

(but I did get a few inches of this sock knitted!)

Chatting about it all later, we found that neither of us was particularly happy with our experience with the new hygienist. Our long-standing and highly respected professional had moved on and we both realised that it might take time to establish confidence and trust a new one. But neither of us was happy and with everything else going on, we decided to park that issue and focus on other things for now!

With a free afternoon, we carried straight on to the Miele Experience Centre near Oxford to find a replacement hob. It’s an hour and a quarter away, along a very familiar and much travelled route and we enjoyed the drive and a fun lunch at a good fast food restaurant along the way.

The Home Economist at Miele was excellent and able to offer great advice - except that in the next couple of weeks, Miele will launch a new range of hobs. That means the current range is largely out of stock and the new models are yet to arrive. Thankfully, the best replacement in the new range with the features we were looking for would be available at a cost far less than £5.5k during the next couple of weeks. We placed a provisional order (having explained the current situation at home) and left feeling better about all of this.

But come on, life isn’t that simple, is it? (even if the tulips this week have been spectacular)

A call to our kitchen supplier, whom we’d already spoken to about all of this, pointed out that the new hobs are more powerful than the old ones. Was our wiring able to accommodate the increased power demands? What?! Thankfully, we still had the electrician who worked on our house most recently on speed dial and he thought about it a while before agreeing that yes, he’d used 6mm wiring throughout and that would be fine with the increased power level. Phew! Thank you Kev!

In the meantime, our kitchen expert had been in touch with the technician who’d fitted our original kitchen and has been back to replace various appliances in the past few years. Not only had Martin fitted the original hob but he’d also fitted this latest one with the “beyond economic repair” label on it. He knew how large a hole he’d cut in the granite and how deep the aperture was too. He took a look at the specifications of the hob we’d identified and said it’d be fine!

This morning, we feel we can put all of that on hold for a few days. We’ve placed our order with Miele, we’ve made arrangements with the kitchen people to come and fit it when it finally arrives. The garden’s looking lovely and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Who knows, maybe at the end of that tunnel will be a more competent and reassuring dental hygienist too?

Or is that asking too much?