We had now made up our minds that Kevin had to go. He had become increasingly unreliable and had already taken a big chunk of our contingency cash.

It had been partly our own fault. We had deviated from the devis and had paid him up front on the hourly rate. The result was a £4,000 black hole – largely for work that we could have done ourselves or could have left until later. The last straw had been the concreting of the kitchen floor: it had taken for ever to get him to do it and then he’d clearly forgotten to imbed some leads and connections. He had made similar mistakes in wiring lights in the main downstairs room. Anything that has to be done twice is twice as expensive and we just couldn’t take it any more.

He wasn’t at all surprised to be given the sack. There was a kind of natural rationale to it. Kevin simply took on more and more work until each of his employers, in turn, got rid of him. Meanwhile, of course, he found new people to work for – invariably British. More people to make a mug of. More pockets to pick.

Kevin did not contest our decision. He smiled, finished his sandwich, packed up his gear and went.

Looking back we have mixed feelings about him. He was unreliable, untruthful, and he overcharged, but he could also be immensely practical, even inspiring. He also, partly by default, gave us the confidence to tackle jobs that seemed beyond us. Although we were not sorry to see him go I am not sure we would have made so much progress without him, nor would we have learned half as much.

We decided on large tiles for the kitchen floor. As they had a sale on at our local bricolage, we went to try our luck. We chose a pattern we liked with some matching edgings and went to place our order. We needed ten packs, the computer stock list said they only had seven. It would take two weeks to order the extra packs. We paid a deposit and left.

We called after the fortnight: no tiles, in fact no record of the order. Same arrangement: telephone in a fortnight. Two weeks later, still no tiles, but two weeks after that – a minor miracle – our tiles had arrived.

We arrived in a downpour, ran into the building and were asked to wait. We waited 20 minutes and at the end of that time we had pretty much stopped dripping on the floor, but there were still no tiles. The cashier offered us bricolage brochures to read.

Doris suggested that with their level of efficiency they might consider keeping a few novels.

We could hear the buzz of argument in the background. The manager was saying that they were on the computer stock list and therefore they had them, while the lad in the yard was suggesting that the computer might like to come outside into the rain to try to find them.

The manager went into the yard and returned five minutes later looking determined but moist. He checked his stock list again and barked further instructions into the yard. Less than a minute later we heard a triumphal cheer.

Our tiles, although incorrectly labelled, had been found.

The soaking wet boxes disintegrated as we loaded the tiles into our trailer and as we drove home we could hear the load moving. I pulled over immediately but some tiles were already broken.

We considered our options and decided to leave Doris with the trailer whilst I loaded as many as possible into the car. We would have to transport them in shifts. But then, a stroke of luck. One of neighbours came past with an empty jeep and we loaded the remaining tiles into the back.

Despite the fact it had failed us this time I would recommend buying a trailer to anyone buying a country property in France. Even a medium-sized French garden produces a lot of weeds and grass cuttings, and when it comes to renovation there is bound to be a lot of stripped out material and rubble. Then there are the trips to the bricolage and builders’ merchants.

Our trailer is plated for a maximum payload of 500 kilos and reputable builders’ merchants will not fill it beyond that limit. Even the sand hopper has a metre which indicates the weight of each load. 500 kilos may seem a fair whack, but its not very much in sand and cement.

Older village properties in the Charente are invariably stone built and, as renovation projects progress, people either have a deficit or surplus of stone. We wanted to build some low level garden walls so, whenever we were driving around, we played ‘spot the surplus’, then it was hitch up the trailer and go and collect it.

One problem is that stone, despite being heavy, throws itself around the trailer and this constant change of balance is very scary when you are driving. I overcame this with what I hope to patent as ‘the device which means you don’t have to wear brown trousers when you’re pulling a trailer full of stone’. It works like this: using suitable planks I made a removable cross-shape division in the trailer – creating four compartments. Loading a similar amount of stone into each compartment massively reduces stone movement and keeps the trailer nicely balanced. Wonderful. Like all great inventions it is both brilliant and simple.