Today I have been mainly making and mowing.

The only upside of watching half your house get thrown through the windows is that it creates a huge amount of wood. Wasteful builders would happily take it to the recycling centre (I have a hunch that they are paid by the Builders’ Merchants and DIY stores so to do) but not me, oh dear me no. Not for John ‘Ingenuity’ Ward such a solution. Most wood can be put to two vital uses: fuel for the log burner, and Things Made of Wood.

If you have a great deal of wood to get rid of, then necessity can be the mother of invention. But if you lack any talent for working in wood (as do I) than ingenuity is the son of incompetence.

My fame for setting out to make a table that eventually turns out to be a a bench for very tall people is not exactly global, but amongst my friends and acquaintances it is the subject of much ribald amusement. Equally, I am the only person I know who can start with plans for a garden shed, and wind up producing a decking area with the unique minstrel’s gallery afterthought feature.

But as the years have first of all slumbered and then rocketed by, my patience has increased slightly, and so since about 1998 I have accepted that nails are all very well, but screws, dowels and mortices can also come in handy as well.

Thus, although none of my contraptions would ever be allowed in the house, like many a Heinz 57 farmyard cat they can be of some use in the grounds…..or ‘grinds’ as upper middle-class people always pronounce it.

Today my poolside table was finished, prior to preserving and polishing. The new bench (already primed with Farrow & Ball emergency use wood treatment) is almost ready; and the shed – while still at the ground floor stage – has been pronounced safe by several visitors. When the house windows are ripped out to to be replaced (by close contemporary copies with the added advantage of keeping heat in rather than letting it out of an evening) two of them will become the sort of shed French windows that any circus Porg could use with ease. For I am, if nothing else, that artisan constantly in search of the niche market. Next comes the recycling of the old staircase as a bed.

And so to the grass thing, or rather the mowing thereof. Regulars here will know that my last spurt of ingenuity – as applied to the tractor mower – was designed to keep it going on a diet of wires instead of steering axles, string instead of fan-belts, and rubber bits where the guidance wheels should be. This finally became a survivalist fantasy failure last Tuesday, when the rubber bits fell off and the blades ate the string fan-belts. I have thus been forced – entirely against my will – to consume again. But big changes are afoot in the retail pull-through space.

All previous disinterest in the customer has been replaced (even here in historically rude France) by the sprinkling of rose petals and promises of asses milk bathing in return for making a major purchase…plus discounts of 10% and upwards. I have been able, in this customer-facing context, to negotiate a good deal.

It goes like this: the retailer takes my ageing green beast and replaces all the bent parts held together by piano wire with proper spares…free. He gives me a 15% discount off the list price of a new mower. He is relieved of the need to take a heap of old junk as the trade-in, while I gain a renovated junk heap to sell through various EBay forms. We both win – and net, I get a brand new Husqvarna tractor mower for 40% less than I’d expected.

I do think that more and more retail trading will take place in this sort of way – until, of course, everyone has access to 3D printing…at which point the entire raison d’etre of manufacture and distribution ceases to have any meaning whatsoever. When that happens, the models broken by the arrival of the internet will seem but mere scrapes by comparison.

But in the meantime, I have a shiney new Husky in the grange. Great fun shall be had with it.

Earlier at The Slog: Zorba the Greek goes mad in the bond markets