The few days of fine weather - I am tempted to say 'our summer' - brought a rush of blood to my head.

It sent me rushing round the house in search of things to wash, apart from the ordinary run of the weekly washing.

Nothing was safe from my cleaning onslaught and the machine soon filled up. That was the moment when I discovered that I had let myself run out of that nice smelly blue stuff which is guaranteed to make your washing seem as though it had been hanging in the soft air of the Arabian Nights.

I had no wish to shut up shop and go to my local supermarket at that stage of the proceedings and was about to decide what to do without my Thousand and One Nights in a Harem when I remembered that hidden away at the back of my cupboard, I had a sample bottle of something very similar being marketed as the latest thing in washing care.

With a sigh of relief I ferreted around and, to my surprise (my cupboards not being the tidiest in town) I found it. This being a new and unfamiliar product, I looked for the instructions and that was where the fun began.

One side of the bottle showed some immaculately white washing - well it would, wouldn't it, it is not going to show it looking dingy.

A second side had a list of the names and addresses of the manufacturer in a number of different countries - great if you wanted to tell your friends overseas: "I say, you really must use Brand X, it is made by such and such a company in your country" but not of rivetting interest to me, who was merely looking for instructions on the use of Brand X.

The third side held a marvellous exercise in your knowledge of about six foreign languages, at least two of which I did not recognise, setting forth the dangers of improper use of the contents of the bottle.

It is hard to believe that someone about to do the washing would suddenly take a swig of a fabric softener, but apparently there are such people about In this day of instant demands for compensation for the smallest lapse on the part of the manufacturer, they have to take every precaution against that possibility.

The fact that all the instructions against misuse were printed in such small type requiring 20/20 eyesight, plus a strong magnifying glass, is neither here nor there. What I really wanted was instruction on the amount needed to achieve the promised result, and that was not immediately visible.

On the fourth side was what appeared at first sight to be a puzzle aimed at keeping the children quiet while you did the washing. On close inspection it turned out to be a pictogram showing various permutations of hand and machine washing, with a collection of red arrows (do not pass 'go' - go to jail?) and blue arrows (well done, you have cracked the code!). The whole panel was headed by a large question mark.

I can't say I was surprised, my mind was full of question marks. In the end I took the plunge and dolloped what I thought was a reasonable translation of the puzzle into the wash and so far my curtains, cushion covers, swimming towels and the rest of my worldly goods do not seem to have suffered.

It was a tough test for a Third Ager but I think I passed - just!