| Hello there. |
| I was asked to tell you about the extent of the damage to the main building, caused by the recent storm. |
| Oh, that's right. I take it that most of the damage is just to the main building? |
| It is indeed, since the building is so old. |
| However, luckily, the damage is minor, |
| and all of it can be fixed in one day, given that we have five people in our team. |
| What will you be doing first? I understand you start at 8 in the morning. |
| That's right, |
| and we were going to remove the fallen tree, |
| but we've been told there are exams that morning, |
| and I'm sure the sound of those saws and other heavy equipment will disturb all the students, |
| so instead we'll fix that leaky roof. |
| That's a 4-hou job, since it involves substantial repair, |
| not like fixing broken windows, which can be done quite quickly. |
| So you'll fix the broken window after that, from midday? |
| We could do that, |
| but since we'll be working in the ceiling, it's more logical to get rid of those birds' nests there. |
| It's a small job but will require crawling inside the ceiling cavity, |
| which is not an easy exercise, so that will take about an hour. |
| But this is good, since by that time the exams should be over, |
| and we can address that tree which has been blown over, |
| after our 1-hour lunch break of course. |
| It will be quite noisy dealing with that, but it will be finished by three o'clock. |
| Some of our staff will then leave to fix things on another site, |
| an office nearby needs a new window, |
| but two of us, including myself, will remain here to paint over that discoloured patch of wall in your office. |
| Oh good, it looks so horrible at the moment. |
| Well, we'll certainly make it look good once again, |
| and in the last hour of our working day, we'll fix up that problem with the wiring. |
| Apparently the power doesn't go to one of the classrooms. |
| Probably some water has gotten into the fuse box, |
| so we'll just change a few wires, and clean up the moisture, and it should be fine. |
| I certainly appreciate all the effort you and your team are taking to fix things here, |
| but I do have one request. |
| And what is that? |
| You said you're going to paint the back wall in my office. |
| Will it be the same colour as before? |
| Yes, we'll make it a nice white colour. |
| Well that's the point. I'd prefer it to be yellow, to match the furniture. |
| The furniture is orange, actually, but I think yellow is a nice match. |
| Can you do that? |
| We can certainly do that. Yellow it is. |
| Certainly a prettier colour than just plain white, |
| or the blue in my kitchen at home for that matter. |
| And we can leave the paint can with you, in case you need to do some touch-ups, |
| or if the stain reappears. |
| I'll just leave it in the garden shed, the one next to the main classroom. |
| And incidentally, about those birds in the ceiling. |
| I was just investigating, and I heard the chirping of little baby birds in there, |
| so there must be some young ones in a nest. |
| I just thought you'd like to know that we can give them to a wildlife reserve. |
| There's one in the next suburb, so that should not be too much trouble. |
| Or you could give them to one of our teachers. |
| I have a colleague who can raise them. |
| I would say the wildlife reserve is a better option, |
| since the people there are used to dealing with animals, |
| and as for that fallen tree, we'll cut it up into small pieces |
| and that can be firewood in my house, so that won't be wasted either, |
| although the smoke will cause some pollution, |
| but I have a special licence for my fireplace, so no one can object to that. |
| I've noticed also that the university has a garden bin, for the smaller items, |
| leaves and sticks and bark, and so on, |
| so we can dispose of material in that, also. |
| You do have some waste piles out the back, |
| but a proper garden bin means that the material will be recycled, |
| and that's better for the environment, so you can rest assured we will use that. |