Our Patisserie Plumber - the Curse of Claude

The curse of Claude, who plumbed our fixer upper flat twenty six years ago continues. Just last night we discovered, yet another, leak that went through the floor and blistered out the ceiling in the flat below. Ah Claude, I blame these

and your Gallic charm I mean when our Irish contractor a big burly bloke from Belfast gave us an incredible bid to fix this flat top to bottom and our expenses were tight we thought he's from heaven. Our Belfast bloke had an international crew - carpenter from Iraq, another Belfast bloke who we later found out was IRA and wanted, and a trés charmant Frenchman who was un Patissier (bakery bloke) by trade who plumbed. What could be more cool!

The intricacies of baking, lightweight crusts of croissants tied into plumbing or at least it sounded parfait at the time. Claude, we'd discovered when the crew were on break, brought brioches, an Epiphany cake you name it. The construction site of our torn up flat smelled like butter. Ah, deadlines raced by, Claude would shrug. It's like the art of baking, he'd say, it takes time. He'd appear with a tart de frangiapani...and we'd melt with the butter and his skill at what tasted like heaven.

Zut alors, leaking pipes, bubbled up floor tiles, showed up in the following years. Claude? Could he come and repair his artistic arrangements of the pipes under the sink? Claude, alas, had gone back to the mother country and was somewhere in la France Profonde.

Now twenty six years later, this horrendous leak to downstairs is being - hopefully dealt with today. Which means ripping up a ton of tile, costly piping and a new plumber who asked me 'How in the world did your former plumber do this and what was he thinking?' Ah, I give him the Gallic shrug knowing it's the Curse of Claude. 'Maybe entwining a swirl of dough like a croissant'. Cara - Tuesday in leaksville.