i figured out what I was missing, I hadn't figured out you have to press esc to be able so you aren't set to build anything before you can actually select stuff. Thanks for the help.
Ah ok! I think you mean the Washer picked from the toolbar remained active on the mouse pointer, waiting to place another one, and Escape reverted to the empty pointer (Q pipette does this too).
Thanks, sounds like I need a real tutorial and more visible indication of that building/operating modality.
Edit: for now I have added hint text above the toolbar to emphasise this.