We have a little flat roof. Over the extension we built onto our kitchen 12 years ago. The guys who built it have long since vanished into that netherworld ether of shitty craftsmen who you never want again to darken your doorstep. Or lighten it, re-shape it or fill the missing chips. Nor anything else in the house ever again. The ‘builders’ who are unfit to change a lightbulb. But they’re gone. Names changed, phones disconnected, addresses never existed in the first place. History.

So we’ve had half of the extension replaced over the years and all was seemingly fine, until water started to come onto the dining table one friday night. And no-one likes watered down chicken soup. No-one! We did a ‘DIY’ job, which was putting a big bowl on the table under the leaky bit of ceiling. But I knew that was never really permanent. So our builder came and said ‘holy shit! look at the roof!!’ Which, I must confess, I hadn’t done much of in the intervening 12 years and it just looked like some lead sheets. With a big gap in the middle. Which probably (though I ain’t no builder) was the problem. So Mo patched it up and sent his ‘roofer’ round.

We’ve used Mo for 10 years. He’s a proper building contractor and is the most reliable and available dude in the world. And no, you can’t have his number, I’d give you all my pin numbers first. And most of my family. And Mo sent Martin. The Roof Guy.

He’s actually Marcin, so he looks likes Martin but he’s Polish. And he arrived to ‘inspect’ with several lanyards round his neck. All various badges of honour, medals of valour almost, within the roofing fraternity. He’s a master roofer. He’s specially licensed as a fibre glass roof specialist. He’s a health & safety approved, officially… errr… healthy and really safe guy, and other things too. Which he lets you know. Often and repeatedly.

What Martin isn’t is modest. What Martin is though, is fantastically professional, efficient and neat. They even covered the lawn to save it from dust. And the roof? OMG it is a thing of such beauty I just have to share. And not just the neatest, most beautiful flat roof ever, but, according to Marcin (because Martin wouldn’t have said it like this) it is g-varanteed for 20 years, backed by an insurance, AND he included all the ‘isolation’. You know, the stuff that prevents heat escaping. Isolation.

God bless him, is what I say. And his chest-full of lanyards.

Happy Sunday (Man United fans excluded, obvs)

A xxxx