SURELY the true measure of success lies in the ability to take diversity and to turn it around until it is facing back the way it came, and to make it work for you.

Although success is a word I have not had too much call to use, I do feel that the last couple of weeks have begrudgingly let me have a small taste of it. The adversity which made its way to my door was a particularly sticky planning issue involving an old access road, ancient rights of way and grumpy old farmer neighbours - and therefore a postponement of the start date for the next big project for Trevor Morris Renovation. A bit if a blow, not least of all to the business account, which is looking particularly sick at the moment, bringing new meaning to the expression running on empty'.

I had to look at the options before me. The delay was only going to be a few weeks. That ruled out bringing forward the next big job, because that is an eight-month job and I don't think that the present client would swallow a three-week planning delay followed by an eight-month wait for the builder to turn up. I could try and find a small job to tide me over (didn't like that one). I could sit at home and watch the last few centimes evaporate out of the account, or I could see things as an opportunity. I chose the latter.

We bought two ruins at the bottom of our garden last year and have slowly been knocking them into shape in the distant hope of renting them out as holiday gîtes next summer, a date that is rapidly approaching. I managed to renovate one of the roofs last year and the second one has patiently been awaiting my attention while leaking like a sieve.

Here was my opportunity. I had machinery sat around waiting that could be put to use humping and dumping tiles, my colleague Guillaume was also available (and even better he owed me several weeks work from the extension that I built for him), and the best part was that because of my super-green recycling approach to building, most of the materials were already to be found on site and ready to be reused.

The first small problem was that one of the roofs was on the new kitchen, which is in a lean-to next to the barn. Besides having no roof it only had one and a half walls. A wall being a good starting point for a roof, they had to be built, and built they were. A few blocks that had been lying around and rocks raked up from the garden soon took on the aspect of a stone wall and doorway. That done, the old roof was stripped off, amongst the showers and downpours (yes, they are still going on), and it did throw up one nasty howler. One half of the entire roof was rotten, so all of the woodwork had to be replaced. A quick visit to the builders merchant and a 30-day credit sorted out the materials problem and an afternoon of demolition and building saw us back on track.

A lucky break with the weather gave us a couple of days to sort the old tiles and get them back up to where they belonged, with all of the verges and ridges nicely mucked on. Phew, all done and dusted, with just a couple of hours before the lorry arrived to take the telescopic forklift on to the next job. A real success for us to be watertight. An unqualified success would have included a short rest before the next big job; maybe next time