Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? How else does one get a tradie in this town?

“Both of us,” she says, “need to say more than ‘great job’. That’s pathetic. These are people with specialist trade skills. They are in short supply. We need to go out of our way to woo them.”

Jocasta explains to me that, at university, she studied the great love poets of the 16th and 17th centuries, people like Andrew Marvell and John Donne.

“Back then,” she says, “poets had the same problem. The person they were courting had to be wooed with extravagant praise. She was just like an Australian tradie.”

Jocasta says that Marvell’s poem To My Coy Mistress is a case in point, especially if given a rewrite.

“Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, tradie, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Here’s the point that’s then made by the poem: we don’t have endless time. The heater doesn’t work and there’s water coming into the house. Luckily, Marvell supplies the perfect words:

At my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

Admittedly, the poem then gets a bit weird. Were I to ring, the tradie in question might take it amiss.

….worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust.

How will the roof bloke react? “Mate, my virginity is not the issue. I just don’t have time to fix your roof.”

Fair enough. The Marvell won’t work. But what about John Donne?

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Jocasta mentions his poem The Flea. Here’s the logic: if the woman and her would-be lover were bitten by the same flea, then they might as well go hell for leather since their blood is already intermingled.

Or in my version: If the tradie and his customer were bitten by the same insect we’d be blood brothers. He’d be forced to do the work through family loyalty.

Jocasta says: “So all we have to do is get both guys over here, then see if we can encourage a mossie to have a go at both them and us.”

I like the idea but realise it depends on an actual house visit from a tradie. These are hard to achieve. Donne, I note, already had his prospective lover in his clutches.

Maybe I need to bring in the big guns. Shakespeare.

The plan is to ring the roof bloke and eschew my lame comment of “great job”, and instead present a proper compliment.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (I shall say to him)
Thou art more lovely and more temperate…

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So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

I think he’ll react well. Who could refuse? I try his number again so I can deliver my speech, but it goes to message. He’s no longer even taking calls.

Given the scale of the skills crisis, I may have to do the jobs myself. Clambering on the roof and then fiddling with the gas supply. What could go wrong?

I put my plan to Jocasta who then presents me with a final poem. This time around, it’s Hilaire Belloc.

Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
It is the business of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.

She makes a fair point. I may have to invest in a raincoat and a jumper and wait. All things pass, even the skills crisis.

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