YOU know, no-one said it would be easy, but there are some days in La France Profonde where packing a case, putting dog in car and driving away without a second glance back seems the better option.
For nothing, nothing, is simple here. Everything seems to come with unnecessary, added frustrations. There is never a one-stop number to phone; never a simple solution when it can be complicated by ifs and buts and the dreaded word…normally.
Last week it was only by chance and a matter of minutes that I didn’t end up with broken limbs again, pinned under my "floating" fabulous Italian bathroom sink unit when it split from the half-tiled wall.
Only luck that the shower cabinet stopped it before it smashed on the slate floor.
And luck again that Ian, who’s been a stalwart man of all trades since I arrived here, took an initial look and said the magic words: "No problem, I can fix that."
From there though all went rapidly downhill and bit by bit was uncovered a rotten mess of wrong fittings, leaking pipes, dissolving mud-brick walls and the black spores of rot and damp.
But let me take you back a few months.
Having lived with a basic, very basic bathroom off my bedroom for years I decided I couldn’t face another winter climbing into the bath and holding the shower over my head.
I also decided the house needed repainting and appliances changed in the kitchen.
To this end I freelanced my little socks off to pay for it and another Ian was recommended to do the work.
Within days I couldn’t sing his praises highly enough (I’m turning to cliches as my mind floats away with the pipes) and almost cried with joy (see?) as my new shower room emerged.
Glistening marbled grey tiles covered every surface as requested; the large expensive shower cabinet with its power showerheads a thing of beauty.
To cover some pipe work he built a tiled box between sink and shower upon which I placed thick white towels and robe.
I had finally returned to city spa living and as I was paying cash in hand on a fixed deal it was substantially cheaper –but, of course, actually illegal.
Although he was fully registered in France he did work on the black on a lot of his jobs to cut down the social charges. Some French tradesmen once you know them do similar.
It’s a risk because the law places the onus of responsibility on both "employer" and "employee" and if discovered both face a hefty fine.
When he left me – on the basis of how thrilled I was – I promised him more work this year if I made any extra cash.
So I was saddened on hearing he and his partner had split up and he’d returned to the UK just three months after my work had been finished.
He replied immediately to my email wishing him well and jokingly slating him for leaving me, too, and said he hoped we’d keep in touch.
You know what’s coming, don’t you?
To cut it short, when the trouble hit, he didn’t reply. When I begged him to at least tell us how to access the pipework, I finally got a one-liner in return.
The scene that greeted us was a horror story. The pipes must have been leaking from the start and each time after flooding, water drained a little into the wall holding the sink.
Inside the space he’d dropped an empty water bottle, off cuts, shower bits and general detritus; mould had colonised the box itself.
The good Ian, fully registered, doesn’t and rightly won’t do plumbing work, so all closed down for the weekend. Come on we’re in France.
Over and over again in these columns, from day one, I’ve warned against the British cowboys – the ones who get on the ferry an insurance salesman and come off the other end as builders/electricians/plumbers.
I’ve prided myself on spotting them and heading them off at the pass. Hubris.
But even now as I await a plumber, French, I cannot think of him as such and more than anything else I am just deeply disappointed.
I’m sure such things happen and had he still been here he would have returned and sorted it out.
Now in England he knows I have no redress and I will simply have to bite the bullet and pray the work doesn’t clear out my last few extra euros.
What I cannot forgive, though, is that after weeks in my house daily, great chats and hard graft, he couldn’t just email or pick up the phone and say: "Merde. I’m sorry. I don’t know what could have happened and had I been there..."
That’s all it would have taken. A few lines, a call, an offer to help other workmen by phone.
But no. Nothing.
So why didn’t I hire local artisans from the start? Simple. Time after time they fail to show, promise an estimate and disappear, charge three times the rate expected and cannot start for months.
God knows I set off here with the best of intentions. And gave up….and went "under the counter."
Never again.
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