My dream - and my bank balance - are in danger

I asked an island contractor, Edwin Dickinson, to have a look at the Charming House and tell me what to do. I now knew it had termites, but I was going ahead with the purchase anyway.

"Termites!" said Edwin, standing in the thorn bushes surrounding my dilapidated beachfront property. "You'll have to knock the whole thing down. There is nothing we can do with this."

Wood, he explained, was a rotten choice of building material. "Just look around!" he said. I did, and told him that I liked what I saw. "The idea is to keep the place as original as possible," I said.

But Edwin would have none of it: he would demolish the house and build me a nice new one of breeze-block. Even the kitchen and living room at the back, made of lovely old stone hewn from coral, would have to go, too much trouble

to repair. For this he would charge me $300,000.

Edwin was wiping out both my dream and my bank balance (having already agreed to pay $95,000 for the house). But it is tough arguing with the Dickinson family on Salt Cay: patriarch Poley has been building for years, Shine runs the Buccaneer ferry which ships over lumber and paint, Edwin manages the islands' building supply store and Carolyn is the District Commissioner who makes sure licenses and permits are in order.

They are a powerful clan. But I was not going to turn my cottage into a blockhouse. "If I wanted a new house, why would I buy an old one?" I asked.

"This is the only way I'll do it," said Edwin. "And you won't find anyone else."

I refused to sign the contract. Islanders came by, shaking