Finishing the Job

Yesterday the builders returned. M. Virondeau rang up the evening before to say they were coming and, as luck would have it, Jason was here for the weekend. I put him on the phone and M. Virondeau agreed to be at the house between 8 and 8.30 am the next morning to talk to us about his bill and the items left outstanding to be done.

At 8 am Jean-Luc and Didier turned up, but no sign of M. Virondeau. I asked Jean-Luc if he was following and was told he was on another job and would be here in the afternoon! After I had come down off the ceiling, Jean-Luc said he would phone Virondeau, and subsequently left to pick him up. They arrived back at about 9 am - while I was out at the Post Office. In my absence Jason had talked to Virondeau about all the things I had discussed with him the previous day, and Virondeau had some 'answers'. I also wanted an idea of what the current work would cost (a shower door, the kitchen sink and dishwasher fitting). Regarding the no-show that morning, Jason suggested it was, perhaps, a misunderstanding and Virondeau said yes, he had not said that time at all, but merely said he would be there at some time in the day. Since I was there when Jason spoke to him on the phone and heard Jason repeat the time back to him, I know that was not true.

With regard to the charges on the latest bill, Virondeau agreed to reduce some of them. Regarding charges for the current job, I looked at what he had quoted to Jason and protested that over 700 euros for the shower door and 900 euros for the man-hours were ludicrous. He said I had personally picked the shower door from a catalogue his wife had shown me and agreed the cost! I was flabbergasted that he could come out with such a barefaced piece of fiction and told him that no such thing had ever happened - on the contrary, whenever I have spoken to his wife she always says she will have to speak to him! Usually this is when matters are not going to plan, or the builders have not turned up for a few days!

However - all that aside - I have finally got the sink installed in the kitchen, and a lovely wooden worktop. It is a real luxury to have the drainage - as I have been using a 'slop bucket' for a long time, and have to constantly empty it in the garden.

Look at my sink!


Also, the shutter on the outside door of the end room (taken off when the guttering was put on last summer) has finally been rehung! Not that it's much of a shutter - badly in need of mending!


The well, too has been replaced - at last:



As I write this, both Virondeau and Jean-Luc are in the kitchen, finishing off the plastering of the legs supporting the worktop. Seems to me there is only the dishwasher to plumb in and everything will be finished!