YOU know you’re getting old when a new washing machine is heralded like the arrival of the Baby Jesus himself.

Gone are the days when the ‘sniff-test’ would suffice and a quick spray of Febreeze was considered a luxury.

Now my domestic life is run like a finely-tuned machine - and it felt like a very long fortnight between the old machine giving up the ghost and the wondrous day the new one was delivered.

If it had been physically possible I’d have organised choirs of angels to beam love and light onto my saviour, the delivery driver, as as he traipsed dirty water across the beige carpet and said: “There yer go love, and that’ll be forty quid for installation please.”

But at least I’m not alone.

“Look!” said The Fiance later on, doing a funny dance on the spot while waving the instructions at me.

“It holds 7kg of washing! I don’t know what that means but it sounds a lot!”

I gasped back: “And it has a spin speed of 1,300...somethings! No idea what they are, but that’s a really high number!”

We gazed at the gleaming new machine in silence for several minutes before I realised how stupid we were being.

“What’s wrong with us?” I asked, sheepishly.

The Fiance read my mind.

“What were we thinking?” he groaned. “We obviously need new detergent as well!”

We raced to Morrisons and spent a happy half hour debating the merits of bio versus non-bio and tablets versus washing powder.

Later we muted the telly so we could listen to the sound of the spin.

“I’ve missed that noise,” I sighed happily, as I darned a pair of socks.

The Fiance disappeared into the kitchen, where I heard him opening a bag of popcorn.

“I might just stay in here for a bit,” he shouted through. “I just want to make sure it’s settled in okay.”