Needless to say the machine has not been fixed - the problem is apparently something in the detergent compartment at the top, and it's not a part they routinely carry since the machine is fairly old. So I now have to wait for them to get the part, contact me and arrange another visit, and hope that that fixes it.
Since it's not that long that I had a problem that dragged on for more than a month I am not feeling very happy about this, but we'll see what happens.
Also posted at https://ffutures.dreamwidth.org/2125993.html, where there are