It had to happen. Things have been going almost unbelievably smoothly, a hitch was inevitable.

A couple of weeks ago one of the electricians told me that they thought that the panels in the dining room were made of asbestos. I mentioned this to Monsieur G., who poo pooed the idea, telling me to leave the wiring to the electricians and the rest to him. I was happy to believe him - after all we have the asbestos report, legally required to be provided by the seller, which says there is asbestos elsewhere (in the basement and the little studio, we were going to deal with that later) and nothing in the dining room or the little room that we are turning into a toilet and cloakroom. The panels mysteriously disappeared from the dining room, thus successfully removing the problem. I thought no more about it. Then last Friday, just before we left for London, another electrician mentioned that he thought the panels in the cloakroom were asbestos. Since they were about to make a doorway there I realised that I couldn't ignore this, so I told them to do nothing until I came back from London, when I would make an appointment with an expert to find out if it is asbestos.

Walking back to my car I saw a poster advertising the services of an architect who does asbestos reports. I called him straightaway, left a message, and when I got back late last night there was a message from him. He agreed to go round right away - his office is round the corner to the house - and confirmed that it is asbestos. Even I could see it was. He was reassuring though, promising me that it does no harm if you don't actually drill holes in it. The problem is that the electricians have been drilling holes for plugs already, and the plumber is due to. So I told the painters and the electricians that they have to stop work immediately in that room and give me 24 hours to decide what to do. I found myself in tears, to the absolute bemusement of the kind man who had offered his opinion, and Saeed the painter, who actually put his arm around me to try and comfort me - I couldn't really explain that I was really weeping about the most ghastly week that I have just spent with my mother in law. They all presumably think it's because I care so much about their health - which I do, but not to the point of weeping.