budget issues

I'd been looking forward to seeing BB after my trip but when he met me at the airport tonight, things didn't get off to a very good start. He said he'd been working every day since I left (?!) apart from Wednesday afternoon, when he'd gone for lunch chez Nainbo, and Friday afternoon, when he'd been "chatting and having a laugh" with the guy who had taken down the old concrete lamppost in our front garden. The first five minutes in the car went like this:

BC: (incredulously) But you don't do Chatting And Having A Laugh! How much did he charge anyway? A couple of hundred?

BB: (incredulously) A couple of thou more like.

BC: (choking on my Azorean cinammon twist biscuit) No wonder he was Having A Laugh! Laughing All The Way To The Bank more like!

But that was just a taster - an amuse-bouche, a horse's h'oeuvre - of what was to come because he then dropped the bombshell that he's asked Monsieur Chatting And Having A Laugh All The Way To The Bank to do the masonry work (putting in the concrete slabs and some walls) - for a price equal to 70% of our budget! To put it into perspective, that's twice as much as we paid to completely re-do the house we're in now!

BC: (speechless - for no words were spoken) !

BB: Ok. We've got some budget issues.

BC: (fit to be tied) BUDGET ISSUES! BUDGET ISSUES!

An hour and a half of silence later.......

BC: So. Did you eat all the PC Dinners?

BB: Yep. They were great. The spag bol was hard work though because I had to transfer it into a pan and stir AND put pasta on!!!