We had a visitor this morning.

The inspector from the County Council called to see if we were worthy enough to warrant a grant to fix our roof.

I brought him into the bathroom first. I thought the sight of the water stains on the electrics around the immersion might impress him. He also noticed the ceiling was sagging without my pointing it out. He then started criticising our bathroom, saying the floor should be non-slip for a disabled person and the shower was all wrong. But, says he cheerfully, I can get a grant for all that. He then started muttering about widening our doors for wheelchair access and seemed determined to spend a fortune of the Council’s money.

Anyhows I brought him up onto the roof. He took one look at it and said that was grand, The roofing grant was mine. I didn’t even have to remove the temporary sarcophagus that Navanman had erected. The letter would be in the post and I could start work immediately.

He then took a tour of the house. He was somewhat disappointed to find we had a [nearly] new oil fired boiler and that the house wiring wasn’t actually on fire and the fuse box had been replaced with one of those modern yokes with switches. He really wanted to spend the Council’s money.

He brightened up then and asked if we had had a visit from the Occupational Therapist. I said we had and that the HSE had sent her. That was no good apparently and what we really needed was the Council’s Occupational Therapist who would find lots of ways of spending grant money. I got the impression that he really wanted to demolish the entire house and rebuild from scratch. I might draw the line at that. I like The Manor.

So I got in touch with the Roofer and told him the glad tidings.

It would be a couple of weeks and the weather had to be reasonably dry, as there would in effect be a gaping hole in the roof while the work progressed.

I had better bribe someone in Met Éireann to give us a dry week

I’m sure the Council would have a grant for that.