It used to be called fibreglass, and, living on an island in New Zealand’s Hauraki Gulf, I longed to have a fibreglass boat.  This lightweight material was the new thing and a dinghy of fibreglass was easier to manoeuvre than a clinker-built one.  Not that we had a clinker one either, of course . . . our childhood was spent inventing ways of building boats from the bamboo rampaging in the garden.  Ah, fond memories of a (not-particularly) deprived childhood!

Because money is not everything, and any metal thieves would come away from our building pretty disappointed, we have specified fibreglass flashings.  Fibreglass is now called GRP (as in Glass Reinforced Plastic) but I think I’ve said that before somewhere.  So you will be unsurprised if I now tell you that the mystery man on the roof yesterday was . . . wait for it . . . a flasher!

I’m not very observant, Gordon points out.  But I disagree.  Didn’t I tell you about the stripper  – sorry –  flasher yesterday?