Unleash the Eyebrow

I was away working this week and staying in a hotel where I had no mobile phone signal. I had to go up the road and sit in the car to call home. Marianna had called Max and told him he’d got the job but we needed him to sort out Martin. He visited and, according to Marianna, became quite annoyed when she told him about his objections. It was agreed that he and Martin would meet at our house this evening. She told me beforehand that she felt that Martin was taking the piss now and she would be unleashing her full Greekness and be quite blunt if he didn’t comply and tell him he was pissing us about and we wanted to use a party wall specialist. I wondered if I should warn Max so we could both take cover. He arrived at 4.45, with Martin due at 5. Max had spoken to Bill Hancock, the party wall specialist, earlier in the day and casually told him about our dilemma. Bill’s advice was that we should go next door and insist that Martin remove his guttering. We told Max that we needed to keep Martin on board a bit since we were yet to tell him that the scaffolding for our extension would largely be surrounding his house. Martin arrived at five, armed with his drawings, pencils and set square. It turned out that they recognised each other but couldn’t recall quite where from, but they seemed to have a lot of shared acquaintances. I think this knocked Martin off balance a little. Then Max began work, telling him that he would use a boxed gutter and a lead flashing and made a little sketch of how this would be achieved. He said this would be sufficient for Martin's worries about storms of Biblical proportions. Marianna and I sat in silence while Martin just repeated “Yeah, okay” and accepted all that Max told him. He brought Martin down to earth like a clay pigeon. Then we went outside to discuss the boundary and Max blew Martin’s logic aside. He accepted that our garage would move in by two inches. Max later said that once it was knocked down Martin wouldn’t be able to measure the two inches anyway. Martin agreed that if Max made a sketch of the boxed gutter and we did a letter for us all to sign about the garage shrinking by two inches then he’d sign the Party Wall Agreement. Max then mentioned the scaffolding. It suddenly seemed that negotiations went downhill but Max rescued it, largely by explaining that there was absolutely no way we could build anything without scaffolding around their house. He reassured him endlessly that any damage done to their roof would be rectified at our expense. And so Martin agreed that if Max’s scaffolder wrote a letter detailing how the scaffolding would be done he would agree to this too. And we all shook hands. Max was a man amongst men. Well, amongst the four of us he was. Max will do his sketch by Monday. His scaffolder will come in the morning and then do a letter detailing how he will work and we’ll make a little letter for us and Martin to sign. Good times. As he left Martin, good humouredly, said we should listen out for the high pitched scream when he told Anne about the scaffolding. I wasn’t sure if the scream would be hers or his when she slammed his testicles in a drawer. When they had both left Marianna did a little dance.