I visited the house for the first time in eight days yesterday. Things are really moving forward. There is an extension that is joined to the rest of the house, there are new windows everywhere (although we did ask for frosting in the bathroom), velux windows are in, sun pipes fitted, the electrician is ripping out all of the old wiring and starting to rewire, the plasterer has done a Tyrolian finish on the outside of the house and so much more. Marianna visits at least once a day because she is the project manager, as well as all the other things she has to do, and meets with the electrician, decorator, plasterer and Max regularly. There have been a few recurring themes. One is Max having forgotten about various things we originally told him we wanted doing as part of the refurbishment. Marianna will go to the house and ask him about something like the plastering or altering the skirting and architraves and he responds as if it’s never been mentioned before. She gives me the impression that he’ll only approach her with a whip and a chair and thinks she’s troublesome but when I’ve met him I think it’s more that he thinks men in white coats should be chasing her with a butterfly net. I guess the average customer just accepts the light switch, radiator or whatever that is offered but Marianna has done her homework. She’s had a little falling out with Dave the plumber. Or Max has. Almost two months ago Dave insisted that we buy all of the showers, toilets, baths and sinks and then he had them all delivered. They’ve been in the rear bedroom all this time with window fitters and electricians having to work around them. As Marianna points out the money could have stayed in the bank all this time too. The other recurring theme is Martin and Anne completely blanking her.
I don’t visit so often. I’m more inclined to let them get on with it, if I visited Max would talk me into agreeing to anything and also I feel that I look quite out of place on a building site, regardless of what I’m wearing. Imagine you’re at Glastonbury. I don’t look like someone ready to go wild at a festival, more like someone in a corduroy jacket who’s left a Volvo nearby with the hazards on and is there to collect someone. Also, I’ve been on a report writing marathon (five in the last seven days). I’ve pretty much been asleep at the wheel of my own life. Marianna pops her head over the laptop screen periodically and asks ‘wood or aluminium’, ‘red or white’ or shows me a catalogue where she’s a narrowed a choice of 300 down to two and I give an opinion. She has noticed that my entire brain capacity is focused on work so if she asked the same questions the next day she’d get different answers.
Apart from writing the reports occasionally I have to go to court or parole boards and convince people of how right I was when I wrote the report. It was far from a highlight but I had a trip to Milton Keynes last Tuesday to give evidence in Court. It’s never my favourite thing but it was okay this time. It’s all a game, an opportunity for barristers to use you as the vessel through which they present their case; “You would agree, Mr Bodger, would you not that my client……blah blaaah blaaaaaah”. On Tuesday my policy was just to keep requesting that the defence barrister actually ask me a question rather than just making statements and letting him know that when he did I’d happily answer it. His first questions were about my professional qualifications and experience which gave away the fact that he had nothing better to hit me with. The only problem was that after the examination and cross examination, second and third goes and a couple of questions from the judge I’d been standing in the witness box for almost two hours. I don’t know if it’s just me but increasingly two hours standing is like five minutes kneeling; when I have to move my legs again I feel as if I’m about 63 feet tall and using someone else’s legs. The challenge is just to get back out of the court room without wobbling, staggering or having to hold onto something.
I don’t visit so often. I’m more inclined to let them get on with it, if I visited Max would talk me into agreeing to anything and also I feel that I look quite out of place on a building site, regardless of what I’m wearing. Imagine you’re at Glastonbury. I don’t look like someone ready to go wild at a festival, more like someone in a corduroy jacket who’s left a Volvo nearby with the hazards on and is there to collect someone. Also, I’ve been on a report writing marathon (five in the last seven days). I’ve pretty much been asleep at the wheel of my own life. Marianna pops her head over the laptop screen periodically and asks ‘wood or aluminium’, ‘red or white’ or shows me a catalogue where she’s a narrowed a choice of 300 down to two and I give an opinion. She has noticed that my entire brain capacity is focused on work so if she asked the same questions the next day she’d get different answers.
Apart from writing the reports occasionally I have to go to court or parole boards and convince people of how right I was when I wrote the report. It was far from a highlight but I had a trip to Milton Keynes last Tuesday to give evidence in Court. It’s never my favourite thing but it was okay this time. It’s all a game, an opportunity for barristers to use you as the vessel through which they present their case; “You would agree, Mr Bodger, would you not that my client……blah blaaah blaaaaaah”. On Tuesday my policy was just to keep requesting that the defence barrister actually ask me a question rather than just making statements and letting him know that when he did I’d happily answer it. His first questions were about my professional qualifications and experience which gave away the fact that he had nothing better to hit me with. The only problem was that after the examination and cross examination, second and third goes and a couple of questions from the judge I’d been standing in the witness box for almost two hours. I don’t know if it’s just me but increasingly two hours standing is like five minutes kneeling; when I have to move my legs again I feel as if I’m about 63 feet tall and using someone else’s legs. The challenge is just to get back out of the court room without wobbling, staggering or having to hold onto something.
