Bob the Builder

The project to purchase another property for conversion into a gite is rumbling along. We’ve made more visits to our target property, been through the budget in rather more detail and have continued waiting for the bank to make their minds up.

To be fair, our extremely young and enthusiastic adviser did warn us that decisions are taking about six weeks at the moment.

One final visit has been made, this time with “our” builder, Bob. His name isn’t really Bob, but in build and manner he resembles the cartoon character so strongly that it is really very difficult to shake off the image. He even has a Wendy – a little more tattooed than the animated version, particularly around the head and neck, and not actually female, but Wendy nonetheless.

We’ve known Bob for a little over five years. We trust him. I can safely say that I’ve learned more from him than practically anyone else we’ve met in our time here. Not only does Bob have a fair idea of what we ourselves are capable of doing when it comes to building works, but he actually encourages us to stretch ourselves further to the extent of advising us on technique and lending us tools to complete jobs.

For example, recently when we were extending into a disused part of the house and he came by to measure up for some carpentry, he found me demolishing walls and floor with a hammer. He watched for a few minutes then suggested he lend me a bloody great drill which allowed me to do the job in a few hours rather than days.

I was touched.

So we asked him to come and look through the new place and check that we hadn’t missed anything. He picked up on a few things. A cracked beam that we’d not clocked, for example, (“But you can fix that,” he pointed out) and he noted that the house was possibly close enough to the château in the village for there to be restrictions on swimming pool construction. As it transpired, a quick call to the mayor’s office revealed that the château wasn’t listed as a monument, so pool building is permitted subject only to the normal regulations, but we hadn’t spotted it as a potential concern.

He also noted that the roofs on some of the outbuildings we were planning to use in the conversion were not properly waterproof. The slope was too shallow at 25% for the tiles that were on there (minimum 28% slope) so in heavy rain they let by. As it happed it was raining heavily and the tiles were letting by, so he wasn’t spinning us a yarn. He’s working our how to fix this and how much it is going to cost as I type, which means we should be able to make an offer on the place (subject to finance) today.

Although he does need chasing like every other builder on the planet (except, I am given to understand, Polish ones), he has never dropped us in the poo, doesn’t ask for money upfront and is extremely relaxed about billing. And the work is good quality. I’ll give out his ‘phone number. Once we’ve finished with him.