A surreal day

Today was the official day that Jumping in Puddles was release - of course that doesn't actually mean it is in every shop - just that today is the day it was released from a warehouse in Baldoyle to make its merry way into the book shops around the country.
Release days are strange - you wake feeling all excited and then the day pans out pretty much as other days do. Except today will always go down in history as the day my book came out and my (new) washing machine almost caught on fire.
Now before I launch into a rant about my new washing machine and its combustibility (is that a word?) I should say I am grateful that I'm okay - that we are all okay because it could have gone very, very wrong.
This morning I loaded the machine at 4am. I do this sometimes in a fit of OCD insomnia but for some reason I decided not to switch it on - which I normally would and had planned to do so that I could hang the towels out first thing.
Instead I went back to bed and didn't put the machine on til 11. I pottered about, thinking about book launches and such things, and looking after the baby before taking her upstairs for her midday nap.
Now normally, if I can, I would have a wee lie down beside her for this nap and close my eyes but I knew I had things to do so I lay with her til she fell asleep before making my way downstairs.
Which was filled with steam - belching out of my machine. While there was also a foul and mysterious (rubber burning, laundry detergent, dampy icky) odour and when I touched the machine I almost  burned the hand off myself.
This was NOT GOOD. I was pretty sure this was not meant to happen. And when I touched the detergent drawer and it felt off in my hands - kind of melted and warped and all out of shape I kind of freaked.
The whole thing was turned off - just as the water boiled (yes actually bubbled) in front of the wee glass door and I phoned the machine company to rant.
They are sending an engineer. And engineer will be feck all use when it comes to remoulding plastic and I do not trust the machine any more because if I had switched the fecker on at 4am we could have been burned in our beds. If I had gone to sleep beside the baby, as I normally do, we could have been burned in our beds.
Burned in our beds is not my idea of a nice time.
In fact if I were to make a list of things I never ever want to do, I would say being burned in my bed would be right up there.
I fear a battle brewing ...

And when I went into town later, my book wasn't in the shops yet.