I was pootling along somewhere in the centre of town when I heard someone call my name. It was the postman - who already knows me for some reason - with a registered letter from the Service d'Urbanisme.

This much I knew from the envelope alone: trouble. The Service d'Urbanisme is not in the business of sending you letters welcoming you to your new neighbourhood. With a slightly fluttering heart and shaking fingers I opened the letter; from the first line - 'travaux realises sans autorisation' - it got only worse. The letter infomed me that the Architect whose job it is to protect the town's heritage was walking past the house and heard noises indicating that we were doing major demolition work. This is strictly forbidden within the conservation zone. It went on to order us to stop work immediately (ironically not so difficult since guess what not a single person working there today, think I might be right to be a tiny bit concerned) and summoned us to the Mairie to explain ourselves.

I had already heard that you Don't Fuck with this particular city architect, who is a fusty old bugger who will say no to every single planning application that passes through his office.

It took me a minute or two to figure that we haven't actually done any demolition work to the house, that the noises he heard were probably the plumber drilling holes in concrete. In other words that I had nothing to fear from anyone in that department. So I rang him up straight away. He was pretty aggressive on the phone, informing me that even so I was bound to be in breach of something. It occurred to me that the best thing to do was to disarm him. 'I think the best thing would be for you to come to the house and see for yourself', I said in reply to his rant. 'Oh. Really?' he replied. I don't think he often gets invited round for coffee. (Not this time either actually, since there's no running water, but it's the thought that counts.) 'I'll be there in twenty minutes'.

True to his word, exactly twenty minutes later he was at the gate. I showed him around, explaining how the house had been divided into four apartments and how we had decided to unify it again, respecting its history whilst bringing it into line with contemporary building regulations. After we had looked around inside and outside, he turned to me and apologised. 'I've been doing this job for twenty years in various parts of the country, and I can promise you that I have come across no more than ten people in all that time who have, like you, a deep respect and sensitivity for the architecture of their homes. I assure you that I will look favourably on any planning application you make for this house.'

I'm such a creep. I felt like teacher's pet. Was only sorry I didn't have an apple in my bag (I have just about everything else) to polish and hand to him. But at least we're out of trouble.