Tea time (Eng)

In the house on our street there is a big refurbishment going on. In fact it is a whole rebuilding of rather impressive house where only façade wall is still standing and the rest of the building is demolished. They are also building big underground pool which has eaten half of the garden. This is very expensive project as only house cost them almost million and a half. But we’ve been interested to observe other thing.

There are obviously lots of contractors and lots of workmen on the site. But every time I pass by there are not that many of them actually visibly working and at least one, but more often 2 or 3 of them are having cup of tea or a cigarette. This is in fact an analogy to Ukrainian ‘perekur’ or smoke break. Effectiveness of English builders in England is not much higher than Ukrainian in Ukraine (the later work much more efficiently abroad), but they charge much more!

It is just a sad fact especially after recently we’ve seen Grand Design programme (my favourite on Channel 4). A couple ordered ready-made designer house in Germany and German builders brought together 2-story astonishing building in … 4 days. No tea times, no slow work, working like machines, rain or sun. We’ve been amazed recalling how ‘prorab’ doing refurbishment of our rather modest flat in Kyiv last year over five months. But what can you do? We are just hoping to find some good but cheap Polish builders when the time comes to improve our own property on the island. When we have it :-)