Brian Viner: Country Life

We are shrouded in scaffolding. I say "we" when what I mean is "our house", but in many ways it seems like a disruption that we must bear physically. Somehow, scaffolding seems to intrude even on life indoors, and this morning did so all too literally as I stood in the altogether on the bathroom scales, having quite forgotten that there was a wooden platform just outside the window affording a rather graphic full-frontal. Who got the bigger shock - Trevor the roofer or me - I'm not sure. Either way, when he told me later that he'd spotted some perished guttering that needed replacing, I didn't know whether he was euphemistically referring to me, or more literally to the roof.

Trevor and his mate, Colin, are carrying out some much-needed remedial work to our roof, during which they are also stabilising the bell tower. I'm not trying to be grand by referring to our bell tower. It's a rotting, wooden structure with a galvanised tin lid, and as far as I'm aware, the bell hasn't rung since Armistice Day 1918. We are very much looking forward to having a working bell, although we can't decide whether we should use it regularly - perhaps to summon the children from the garden at supper time - or save it for special occasions, such as landmark birthdays and anniversaries.

But before Trevor and Colin could start work, the scaffolding had to be erected. A team of six beefy men arrived last Wednesday morning in freezing drizzle and within three hours they had covered the entire rear elevation of the house. It was an impressive operation, only slightly diminished by the fact that they were meant to be scaffolding the side of the house, not the rear. Unfortunately, there was nobody around to point out the error. Jane was out and I was on my way back from an overnight stay in London. When I arrived home at 11am, the job was just about done. So I jovially offered them coffee and biscuits, as a sweetener before dropping my bombshell. Then I went into the house, put the kettle on, and phoned the woman at the roofing company who listened in horror and admitted that the fault was hers for giving the scaffolders ambiguous instructions.

I went outside again. "I've got some bad news," I said. "What's that, then?" said the foreman, cheerfully. "I'm afraid you've put all this scaffolding up in the wrong place," I said. "It's meant to be round the side." He looked at me for a moment without saying a word. His expression didn't falter. "I thought you were going to say you'd run out of coffee," he said.

He was standing on a wooden platform at the time, which made it gallows humour in an almost literal sense. But to his immense credit, he and his gang cracked on with the tiresome task of dismantling their morning's work with not the slightest complaint, and duly carted the scaffolding round to the side of the house, where, as the freezing drizzle intensified, they started over again. After another couple of hours, the job was done, and as Jane administered more coffees, our neighbour, Carl, emerged and quite reasonably enquired why we were scaffolded up to the nines. "We're getting their Christmas lights up early," said the foreman, who despite being a fine scaffolder, clearly missed his vocation. He'd have gone down a storm on the Northern comedy circuit.

Whatever, it was nice to be able to laugh about work that is having the kind of impact on our bank balance that Jack Hawkins had on the bridge over the River Kwai. In fact, we've had to sell one of our holiday cottages to pay for it, and before I get any nasty letters, I know that being forced to sell a holiday cottage is not exactly the definition of hardship. But it shows that roof repairs to big, old houses in the country do not come cheap. And this morning, after spotting me naked, followed by the perished guttering, Trevor found that one of the chimneys is perilously close to collapse, just to put the galvanised tin lid on my day.

'Tales of the Country' by Brian Viner is now out in paperback (Simon & Schuster, £7.99)