December 19th - Another fine mess …!

03/01/2008 by Brigid.

Writing so long after the event, I have no idea what happened to the ten days after my last entry. I remember that we managed a trip to Toulouse to buy furniture, and we borrowed BF’s trailer to pick up our new sofa in St. Gaudens.  And the elusive Monsieur Buret, with whom we had been playing telephone ping-pong, for seemingly months, finally contacted us with a firm date to quote for some work on the roof.

In my nightmares the two octogenarian mothers, the cats, and John and myself, were forced to share a single, rather chilly, second-floor bathroom with the roofers working on the house next door grinning maniacally through the steamed-up window.  Then I woke up and remembered that our new kitchen had no water or gas, our first-floor bathroom and shower room had no hot water, and our ground floor toilet was non-functional. It was 19^th December and our first guest, John’s mother, was due to arrive that evening.  I got up and showered quickly, preparing, as I put on my dressing gown, a last minute plea to the plumber in my best and most fluent French.

Mercifully, my speech was not required.  As I got to the top of the stairs, the cats alerted me to an intruder below.  I could hear the clang of tools on the tiled floor and sounds of exertion from the smallest room …  “Bonjour”, I called hopefully.  “Bonjour madam”, a disembodied reply came from somewhere behind the lavatory pan. Halleluia!

M. Buret and his sidekick turned up mid-morning to examine the roof and quote for some minor repairs. They had been introduced to us by a local acquaintance as “serieux” but, dressed in paint-splattered overalls, the two men looked like Laurel and Hardy.  M. Buret quickly drew up a devis for fixing and cleaning the tiles, and went to get some cement. 

The noon air-raid warning siron signalled lunchtime and, as is customary around here, the plumber went for a bite to eat.  The doorbell rang.  The local municiple policeman wished to know what we intended to do with the lavatory that was now sitting on the pavement beneath our front window.  I looked outside.  I hadn’t realised that the plumber had left it there.  It was indeed a pretty repulsive relic: the sort of toilet that one would be embarrassed to let a builder use.  But installed under our front window, intact, and outwardly clean, with its green painted wooden seat, it was a comic sight.  I expect the officer was just concerned in case one of the elderly folk from the maison de la retraite tried to use it.

Laurel and Hardy returned from the builders’ merchant with the cement and a bomb-like contraption for applying the cleaning product.  After a bit of thumping around in the roof, M. Buret’s short round colleague reappeared asking if we had any cord with which to secure his boss.  John and I exchanged worried glances and gave him a roll of strong nylon webbing. 

The plumber returned from lunch and started work on the kitchen sink.  He quickly had the taps connected, but the waste syphon proved more problematic.

Why, oh why, do we never learn?  When we picked up the kitchen elements from Ikea, we had reached the check-out by the time I realised that the polythene bag containing the syphon was split.  “Oh well”, I thought, “it looks complete”.  The trouble is that, by the time one gets to the check-out, going back to exchange a damaged or incomplete item means another trek around the store’s one-way system.  So often we have ended up taking an obviously damaged box because it is the last one left, only to find that someone else has previously had good reason to return it.

In this instance, the overflow pipe was missing, and the plumber was not at all sure that he would be able to get a standard one to fit.  The boss was called in.  After much scratching of heads and one or two mobile phone calls, the part was identified and a replacement ordered.  In the meantime, the gas was connected and the boiler lit. 

I took a Thermos of coffee up to Laurel and Hardy.  One of the men was leaning out of the skylight window, apparently taking the weight of the other on the nylon webbing.   “J’ai vous laissé du café”, I shouted up to the legs on the step ladder.  “Merci” came the reply, and the top half of the short round one appeared through the skylight.  To my horror, there was a loud clatter somewhere outside followed by a shriek from Stan.  Ollie quickly returned to his station and I made a quick exit and left them to it. 

John’s mum had managed to book her return trip ‘free’ on Airmiles.  It wasn’t, of course ‘free’ at all and the limited choice of flights meant that she arrived at 22:40 hrs. We could have done without the hour’s drive to Toulouse at that time of night, but that paled in comparison with her return flight with a 06:00 hr check-in that we had to look forward to.  Mind you, Betty was equally delighted when we told her that she would need to be up and dressed for the plumber the following morning at 08:15 hrs …

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