Slowly but surely the hole became bigger, and the two builders shakier. I don't think they had thought that the wall was that thick, and the heap of stones building up outside the window was becoming like a small mountain. But they manfully struggled on, and when Friday came they were eager to get paid for the week, and make for the liquor shop, to get a 'papsak', that is a kind of a tinfoil, but not quite so easy to tear, bag that holds three liters of wine, cheap and deadly for the normal stomach, but they were so well seasoned that they just get very happy.
I asked them if I will see them on Monday, and both immediately became very shy, and like two naughty schoolboys, stood scratching the ground with the toes of their shoes, and looking well passed my eyes, they very solomnly promised that I will not be disappointed, as they meant to be in on Monday. Of course I had no hope of them being fit  to come in, and after they worked for Jan, and wasn't at work on any one Monday, I just laughed and told them not to drink out their children's food money, and have a good rest, and to go slow on the pot.
Almost all of the men smoke pot, but it is just one of those things, and as long as there is no stronger drugs involved, we except it, as that is so much part of their life.
It was a week-end from hell, as the house was so dusty, and I had to clamber over the furniture to get to my television, but Jan came and brought it into the front room. Nice.
On Monday there of course was no sign of the two, neither was there on Tuesday. On Wednesday I was just starting to give up hope, and did a bit of quiet swearing, when I saw the two come ambling down the road, both a little bent, and both looking well under the weather. They looked at me with yellow miopic eyes, and explained with much gusto that the stones they had taken out the previous week had buggered their backs, and on saying this they got a bitty more bent-up, and, they groaned, that is why they were absent the first two days of the week.When I told them that they looked a bitty sozzled still, they sagged even more, and said that they had to take in a lot of wine before the back aches were feeling better, and I did believe them, about the back aches, as the stones they had taken out were enormous.
I made them a strong coffee, and they sat outside on my little bench, lamenting in whining voices about their poor backs, but as the biggest stones were already out, I turned a deaf ear, and before long the two were working away quite happily.
The picture is of the heap of stones, now much deminished, and overgrown, as I had laid a garden path with most of it.