Being taken by a rogue

So there I was, not happy with Paco, and I meet a man, even more charming and decidedly intelligent who I related my woes to. He was a man whose wife had cooked an amazing meal for me already, and he had seemed more my type of person, an artistic type. I certainly had never thought of him in terms of a builder, but that day he took me around, and showed me some places he was doing up that he owned, and to make a long story short, I hired him to oversee the project, get a proper honest builder on board, and find me better quotes.

As it happens, his idea of the agreement did not tally with mine. At the time I remember thinking, well, I will give him a few weeks, and if it is not working out, then we can call it quits. We both agreed we would still say hello to each other in the bars. He was on a retainer, and he swore blind he would work his socks off for this, and in fact he added that, he would treat my house as if it were his own.

That comforted me. But in truth is should have alarmed me, for eventually, so much did this person consider my house his own, that he did not even consult me about major decisions such as removing the roof, and eventually, hard to believe but true, knocking most of the whole house down altogether, including bits I had already paid to have “re-inforced”.

But he sort of plodded on, for after the first month, I had the beginnings of a small stone cabin elsewhere on the land, converted from an old pigsty, and I thought, I really want a place on the finca to stay in. So I gave him another month, although he had not obtained any quotes, and the proper builder was nowhere in evidence, and I had no idea how much his work on the cabin or anything else for that matter, would cost.

Basically, I was caught between the devil and the deep blue Maestrat sky, and living in a far away place called Liverpool.  I was taken in by a rogue.

“I was impressed with the large beam and the beginnings of an arch. I kept on thinking, if this is built I can check out of that basic hostel in the the village”