backtrack

Just before 8.00am this morning, I am woken by the doorbell. I throw open the bedroom window and peer into the darkness. My plumber is standing on the doorstep. I rush downstairs in my silk floral print pyjamas (£10, Warehouse sale - how I wish I'd snapped up all remaining stock!) and just about manage to stop myself from throwing my arms around him.

'I did come yesterday,' he says. 'But you weren't there.'

It turns out - sod's law - that he arrived in the ten minute slot when I went to the boulangerie. And although I left a message on le patron's mobile, saying that I had just popped out, he didn't get it. And so, after yesterday's posting, I now feel more than a little humbled - especially, since, by 10.00am he has finished the job perfectly and I have a fully functioning shower.

What I don't have is a loo or washbasin, which have been temporarily removed so that the tiler can do the floor. The phrase, 'one step forward, two step's back' (as my friend Susie entitled her book about renovating a barn in France) springs to mind. But it's definitely progress. And my plumber has promised to come back on Monday and refit everything.