It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman…
in possession of a wreck must be in want of a reliable team of tradesmen.
Having worked on a couple of project houses in the East Dulwich area we have been lucky to find a network of marvelous tradesmen. Often one person has led us to another and seldom have we been disappointed. On the occasions when the tradesmen have beena let downthey have been howlingly bad and beyond belief.
My personal favourite was found via a neighbour on Matham Grove. A funny fellow he was too but his work had been good and he had turned up daily for many weeksalbeit in his carpet slippers.The perfect person we thought and enquired about his services. He was finishing up over the road and pencilled us in for some very minor carpentry works and a bit of guttering together with installing a velux window. Well, he certainly turned up and so did his wife who joined him each day at our house - odd to say the least but he did come highly recommended so we pressed on. On day two he was a bit later than expected and he and his wife spent a long time in the garden - keen botanists perhaps? He looked very mellow when he came back in about half an hour later and seemed to float through the day. This pattern continued for a few days until I ventured out to see if they would like a cup of tea. There they both sat with a gigantic Camberwell carrot passing to and fro. One or two more and they were ready to start the day - complete in their domestic bliss and smoke induced haze. And what a day it was - he climbed through the existing rooflight and in 1 hour 30 had replaced all the guttering without the aid of ladders /scaffolding/bloody safety net and floated back down. 32.75 later and the deal was done.
On another occasion he balanced his ladderon my childhood set of Famous Five books (hardbacks of course - safety first) on the stairs at the top of the house so he could poke his head out and check some flashing's. Camberwell carrots you see - the vegetables of the fearless. I expressed my concern for his safety but his lovely wife assured me he would not endanger himself and every risk was a calculated one.
After the initial honeymoon period he turned out, unsurprisingly of course, to be a total madman. He would arrange to come and not - for severalweeks -when I dared to ask if he would ever return hebecame very indignant indeed offering the fact that I was storing all of his tools in my sitting room for free for many weeks as evidence of his good faith in me! Enough was enough. Even my recently pregnant brain could tell this was a no hoper and so he was given the flick (although strictly of course he had flicked me weeks before). He was outraged and treated me to a vitriolic diatribe, including the fact that he had worked so hard for me and that although he had been paid and thanked it was not enough - I and my fellow Princess across the road did not know anything about hard graft and gratitude, even his wife had been coming each day ( uninvited and unwanted I'm afraid) and we had not even paid her! Fancy that, I blush at the very thought of my bad conduct. He concluded with a request for a dinner service of ours he had taken a fancy too and left. Only to return moments later to try and find a large lump of blow he had concealed in my house but could not quite remember where…So farewell then N and J, Princess Sara and I remember you fondly.
Then there was the impersonator. I had been given the name of a top notch decorator and called him for a quote. He arrived and priced the job, beginning quite soon after. Things seemed to be ok although he did turn up at odd hours to do ” a bit o' fillin” or accost me outside of takeaways to pay for his rice and peas. Still he was very personable and so highly recommended that I thought it would be ok. It was not and slowly we began to realize that this bloke was not all he seemed. Cars would pull up outside of our house and people would yell ” Hello Paul”. Not unusual in itself until you realise the man I thought I had hired was called Lindon. Paul/ Lindon brushed this away with the very obvious explanation that his father was called Lindon and so he was called Little Lindon but in his teens did not like the name Little Lindon and adopted the name Paul. Suspicions roused I made some further enquiries and discovered Paul aka Lindon was an imposter who had taken the real Lindon's phone call and decided to take the job himself! What a hoot - until we discovered all of the sashes has been painted shut, the glass damaged and that so much “fillin'” had been applied that our sills were little more than Polyfilla - the exterior variety of course as Paul aka Little Lindon ain't no cowboy. We recovered 30 quid of the total monies we had paid to him and he rode his horse up to Caesars on Streatham High Road to pick up some squaws on our cash. Live and learn.
Well I thought I had. Then blow me if it does not go and happen again at number four just this week. Thus far we have been blessed with the best team ever - dream plasterer Antonio who has made our wonky old walls look like glass, Tony Gas ( a pet name of course) of Flowrite plumbers who is just marvelous and a bit of a hoot to boot and long term all rounder Tui (2E) who is just the best person to have on your side. In addition we have George the joiner and his trusty team mate Ron ( both 70+) but as fit as ( an elderly) butchers dog. And then we have our roofer who has managed about 8 hours in two days, failed to turn up yesterday and probably won't turn up tomorrow. But ces't la vie I may just learn how to fix slates myself and we will be right back on track. Nil desperandum - or roughly translated don't let the roofer grind you down girl…