Hmmm!

The very wonderful Dorking Repair Café, operates on the first Saturday morning of the month - today! They have repaired my vacuum cleaner once before and over the past few days its sucking power was definitely depleted. Also I have a jacket that needed a bit of hemming. In order to avoid embarrassment, i thought that i would have a look and see if any bits could do with a clean (the vacuum that is, not the jacket). And lo! Look what I found! I now have the vacuum in many pieces and its all a lot cleaner (anything non electrical has been washed. I have no idea how to put it all back together again, nor if this will solve the suction problem. I will let you know!

Separately i decided that driving to Dorking for a bit of hemming help was silly and i have done it myself - took about 15 mins. (significantly less than going to Dorking. Albeit they would probably have done a neater job.