A clean sweep

It's ten minutes to eight in the morning and there's a MAN ON MY ROOF. Yes, really. Not that I'm scared, at least not now that I've ascertained that it's the dreaded chimney sweep. I used to see them as romantic, Dick Van Dyke figures who would merrily poke their brush up the chimney a bit, scatter a bit of soot and scintillate with their cockney banter. The modern German breed is a merciless money-grabbing creature - they don't give you the chance to book an appointment (or whatever you do with a chimney sweep - a session? A brushing? A clean?); no, they just arrive and get on with their job and present you with a bill for a hundred euros afterwards. I remember the first time this happened to me - I was completely flummoxed, as I wasn't even aware I had a chimney. Maybe I didn't. Being a law-abiding citizen, I paid the bill anyway. Then there was the time when we did have a chimney, and our fireplace was smoking terribly, but the chimney sweep said nothing was wrong, swore blind he did, and it was CG who discovered the dead squirrel blocking the flue, poor thing, I mean of course the squirrel. And we had paid to be told nothing was wrong.

Writing this has called to mind my London days, when the window cleaner would also simply arrive and start cleaning, always at the most inopportune of moments. Don't tell me that appearing at somebody's upstairs window, while said person is dressing, is down to pure coincidence. I would love to hear the stories swapped at the annual window cleaner convention, or whatever they have. To my shame I remember hiding in the bathroom (small, frosted pane, hard to reach) while Andy/Steve/Gary rang the doorbell for his twenty quid. I never had it to hand, and as a result received red bills in the post for hundreds of pounds. Could it be that the fault lay with... me? Could I have been a little more organised? Nay! Never explain, never apologise, a la Maggie Thatcher. Life's so much simpler that way.