FINDING A BUILDER

Kevin, On His Rope, High In The Geodesic Domes of Eden

I am outside Younger Daughter's house situated in one of the less salubrious suburbs of Cardiff that roll away east of the Taff. The house is already famous for it figured in an episode of Dr Who having its top window blown out by the BBC's pyrotechnicians.  That was a couple of years ago.  BT - or Before Theo - who is now three.  I am not sure what Theo would make of windows being blown out in a sheet of yellow flame but I'm sure he would like to have a go.  Since then, of course, Isla has arrived; Butterbean in family parlance, so the days of BT, or for us before grandchildren, seem a long way back. How time flies.

Anyway her house lies at the bottom of a tree-lined cul-de-sac down the sides of which cars park in herring-bone fashion leaving an irregular gap in the middle which is simple to drive up but very hard to reverse down.  One of the things that impressed me about Ken was that he got into his large, red builders transit van and reversed up the narrow gap, between the projecting tail-lights of the cars on either side, at speed without once stopping or having to draw forward to re-align himself.  Someone to be taken seriously, I thought.  Someone with obvious talent

He had admitted to me that he did everything himself, apart from electrics and central heating, in which departments he relied on friends in the trade.  Driving too, he did himself, as we have just seen.
Younger Daughter had recruited him to refurbish her bathroom while she and the family went off to spent two months in a caravan at the Eden project in Cornwall where the No Fit State Circus - for which her partner, Kevin, performs aerial acrobatics on tall ropes - has a residency.

Having finished his work, Ken was reluctant to accept payment until the job had been 'signed off' and the Eden project being just too far away comfortably to nip back, Younger Daughter requested our help to meet Ken at her house to see what he had done.  She had already sung Ken's praises.  He was, she said, an 'intelligent' builder in the same way that a predictive keyboard might be described as intelligent.  Give Ken a budget, she said, and a broad idea of what you are looking for and he will do the rest.  And there we were: we opened the bathroom door and there was the rest in the shape of a very smart little bathroom in black and white with modern fittings all perfectly refitted and retiled and insulated - a bathroom that would not have looked out of place in a smart modern hotel.  I was bowled over.

So standing outside the house now in the thin rain that is Cardiff's usual trademark I said to Ken that perhaps he might come over in his red van, when he wasn't busy, and give us a price on some of the many jobs that need doing here.  His face lit up and shined as brightly as his bald head. He said he would be glad to.   No hurry, I said.  Ring us in a week or two.  And as Ken drove off backwards down the spiky avenue of death and we reversed hesitantly expecting to hear the crunch of metal on metal at any minute, we thought we had at last found someone who might help to get the house into shape at last before we come to sell it in a few years time.

In fact I find myself anxiously awaiting Ken's call, for the list of jobs seems to get longer by the day. As I lay in bed after waking this morning I remembered the barge boards under the eaves which have been attacked both by birds and the weather.  Then I remembered that we really did need a new loft hatch and then a folding ladder for access. All very tiresome.  Moreover, we have just had a letter from British Gas offering to service our new central heating boiler for £18 plus per month.  I wondered whether Ken's Central Heating friend might be prepared to do it for less. 

Picture of Kevin at Eden is courtesy of No Fit State Circus