One of the things I am half-ashamed to admit to since I stopped working is that I’ve watched a lot of daytime TV. To be honest, I do it for company because I can’t stop DM from working and I was used to having people around me all of the time. So, in time-honoured sad-old-git manner, I now get much of my “human contact” with the telly.

I know it’s no substitute for flesh and blood human beings but in the absence of anything more meaningful it’s better than nothing.

All of this is leading up to ‘fessing up to watching “Homes under the hammer”, “Location, location, location” and “Grand Designs”. At first, I was just fascinated that people could turn dumps into nice (by nice, I mean hygienic-looking) houses in a matter of months. If they could do it why couldn’t we?

Recently though, I’ve realised that HUTH is really annoying in many ways. I hate the way they go through the houses saying “rip this out, change the kitchen, change the bathroom, change the colour scheme to white or cream, neutral, inoffensive, move in and do nothing”. It’s really depressing. What we’re going to end up with is a housing stock in this country that’s bland, bland and more bland. No-one will be brave enough to use colour in case the fashion-gurus ridicule or revile them. I'm not saying don't have cream or white if that's what you want - simply that you shouldn't do it because someone in a fancy suit says it's the only way to sell your home.

I have friends who have spent huge sums of money on their homes because “oh you’ll never be able to sell it without x or y” or whatever. I was told, by a friend, when we put up our home in Sandhurst for sale, that I ought to paint over my reds, golds, greens and yellows with magnolia to ensure we could sell the house. Strangely, having committed the sin of bringing colour into our home, we sold it quickly and with little effort. What gave us our breakthrough – re-photographing the house and using DMs images instead of the crappy estate agent ones!

Late last year, we found someone who could rectify the damp problems we were having on the front of our house and I was finally able to finish painting the dining room. Did I take the opportunity to go back from red to white? No, I carried on in beautiful, bold red, finished it off with gauzy, translucent curtains (Ikea £6 a pair) in orange, pink and purple, added some red and orange fairy lights and my sumptuous room is almost complete.

All that’s left for me to do now is the mosaic design in the panels on the fire surround and I have finally got around to buying the stuff I need to complete that job so it’ll be done this week. It’s taken two years since we started this one room. During this time I thought I’d never manage to rectify the problems or finish it off. Now it’s done, I can hardly believe my luck.