It’s well known that finding a tradesman in Provence during August can be a little difficult. Our pool man chooses the busiest days of the swimming pool year to drive a 4×4 around the Tunisian dessert. I guess he’s just had enough of water.
When you do find a tradesman you can end up having the strangest conversations. It’s as if the heat has got to everyone. Here’s a real snippet of August chat from a St Trop builder. The background to the conversation is the prospect of having to leave an enormous trench in a garden overnight before the JCB man returns the next morning to fill the earth back in.
‘Look at it this way, it’s a good defence vs burglars’ says the jaunty landowner, trying to put a brave face on his problems.
Builder sucking in air through his teeth: ‘Got to be careful though’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Had a friend who planted landmines in his garden’
‘Landmines?’
‘They were only small ones… blew a couple of toes clean off a burglar.’
‘What happened?’
‘He went to jail.’
‘The burglar?’
‘No, my friend.’
Landowner despite himself still curious: ‘Where’d he get the landmines?’
‘Dealer in Marseille,’
‘Really?’
Builder: ‘Kalashnikovs and grenades are much better business than drugs these days. No St Trop house is complete without its own armoury.’
If you liked this you might also like:
Restaurant review Da Pepe restaurant St Remy
and
Property a buyers guide – first hand account of the buying experience
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