Local roofing man Jean-Pierre Ruggeri is making good speed with our new roof here. The super-tough silver-covered insulation went on within a week, during which time our little shooting-lodge looked like an 18th century lunar module. There are rumours that the house can be viewed with the naked eye from Saturn, but as there’s no known life on the ringed planet, it seems safe to assume we can insert ‘isn’t being’ for the words ‘can be’ in that observation.

Now the new battens are going on top. And as this happens, Ruggeri is beginning to fit the super-light Spanish slate tiles. To do this, he has been forced to remove the old flashing around the edges of the roof.

As we stood three days ago discussing the later novels of Jean-Paul Sartre, I pointed out to J-PR that in the event of a storm, much of the resultant rainfall would thus cascade down the interior walls of our house. Oh-la-lah and ha ha said Jean-Pierre, we are not ze thunderstorms in June ‘aving ha ha ha.

That evening we had 15 mm of rainfall in two hours. Some of it went into assorted buckets, casserole dishes, old plastic ice-cream tubs and towels. Most of it went on the sofas and into the plug sockets.

“The problem is the wind” said M.Ruggeri the next morning, as I took him on a guided tour of the Dolphin Aquarium that had once been our sitting room. I ventured to suggest that rain might also have had something to do with it.

“It is an act of God,” he opined, adding “storms like this are very rare in June down here”.

The next night there was a downpour sufficient to render the previous night’s event drier than the Nevada desert. The night after that, it rained steadily and heavily from 10 pm until dawn.

But if nothing else, Jean-Pierre is full of surprises – most of them technological. My wife puts this down to Boys’ Toys, and she may be right. About twice a week, our roofer turns up driving a gigantic piece of plant, with a remote control allowing him to swing ladders or gigantic Stanna stair-lifts hither and thither. This machinery takes him up to chimney tops, ridges, steep gradients and even the very top of our walnut tree…although quite what he wants to do up there remains a mystery.

As well as this heavy stuff, Ruggeri and his employees are equipped with a dozen gadgets capable of making noise. Ordinary hammers are accompanied by air-jet hammers, without much explanation of why they need both forms of nail-zapper. Manual saws have been replaced by chain saws. There is also a giant circular saw straight from the James Bond props department, which seems able to cut through any material unfortunate enough to meet it head-on.

What you can’t take away from the bloke is his perseverance. Through tempest and tropical heat (both of which we’re experiencing right now) he hangs off things, hits things, clips things and measures things. And the result is not only entirely reassuring, it also has that perfect symmetry and planning aforethought that marks out craftsman from mere philosophers.

Some slates have now been laid at one end of the house. I hated to lose our old chestnut tiles, but the cost of replacing them was way beyond our resources. However, I am happy to report that the initial impression you get of the new roof is one of a slightly more ‘grown-up’ house. The locals here have always called our place ‘le p’tit chateau’, which is very much an overstatement. But the new slates would be perfectly at home atop a 19th century Second Empire job in the Loire.

As for the old wooden detritus, this has been distributed as kindling far and wide. Trailers have pitched up and taken them away, leaving us with varietal gratitude: duck eggs, wine, dried ham, tomatoes and spring onions. This may not be up there with credit default swaps, but it’s a bloody sight more sociable – and a helluva lot safer.