Totally floored as tradesman saga ends in interesting twist

Last week I wrote about my problems with my floor. I suppose this is a good time to confess that I'm not always convinced, when I start to write a column, that anyone else will find it interesting.

"But what," I sometimes pause and ask myself, "has this to do with state capture, or structural inequality, or rising sea levels, or Harvey Weinstein? Just because there doesn't seem much new to say about those subjects, is that any reason not to write about them? Those are worthy subjects of weight and heft, and isn't that what people want? To weigh things and heave them?"

I imagine my patient reader - you - patient no more, throwing aside your breakfast newspaper as though it were a mushy grapefruit. "Pah!" you ejaculate in righteous disgust. "What is this frippery? All I see is words! I demand issues!"

So I'm always pleased and relieved to find evidence that at least one member of the reading public has been, if not edified and informed, at least not actively repelled by a column I've written. I believe I received such evidence this week.

After last week's tearjerker about the struggles of finding a floor guy who would so much as send a quote, let alone do the job, I threw myself back into the fray. I took to the phones and invited every flooring guy in town to come take a gander. In the face of a vast and indifferent universe, we must find our crumb of comfort in knowing we've tried our tiny best.

On Wednesday afternoon the doorbell bing-bonged and I trudged downstairs to welcome the umpteenth floor guy. There on the doorstep was an elderly couple. He introduced himself as Barry, and his good lady wife as Liz.

"And that must be the floor," he said, looking past me. He was looking in a downward direction, which was encouraging. Clearly, this was not his first time looking at floors. Compared with some of the fools to whom I've played host, he was already an expert.

They shuffled in and perambulated the passage thoughtfully.

"Old wood," he said to her.

"Very old," she agreed. She looked at me. "It's old wood."

"Yes," I said patiently. When flooring people come to your home, there's a certain sameness to the conversations.

"What colour is that?" she asked, pointing to a section of the wall. This was an unusual conversational turn.

"Um, sort of light blue, I think," I said.

I had never seen a husband-and-wife team of floor guys before. Perhaps her job was to make diverting conversation with the client, like an anaesthetist when you go in for an operation. I wondered which company they were from. I didn't have an appointment for that afternoon, but that didn't mean anything. Flooring guys are free spirits, unbound by convention. They come and go like snow geese.

Neither of them carried a tape measure, but that made sense because neither of them seemed capable of bending far enough to do the measuring. Perhaps after centuries in the flooring biz they could measure just with their eyes.

He offered me some thoughts about the ravages time has wrought upon my floorboards. She asked me about some of the pictures on the wall and admired a glass jellyfish. He flipped through a book.

"You enjoying this?" he asked.

"It's all right," I said.

They seemed to be hoping I would offer them a cup of tea.

"Well," he said at last, "we should be going."

"Would you like my e-mail address?" I asked. I don't expect flooring people to ever actually send me a quote, but politeness demands we at least go through the formalities.

He painstakingly wrote down my address, and said that if I received a mail from the Postnet in Kenilworth, that would be him.

"Can't be bothered with computers, me," he said.

"Quite right," I agreed. They were nice people, with a wide-ranging if slightly inappropriate interest that went well beyond floors. I wondered if I'd ever see them again.

This morning I received an e-mail from the Postnet in Kenilworth. Barry and Liz thanked me for welcoming them into my home. After reading my column last week, they'd been very keen to see the floors for themselves, and they weren't disappointed. They like to take an excursion each week, and this one was well worth the drive. If ever I am in Kenilworth, I should drop by for a cup of tea.