Kayt Turner: ‘Her house is like a showroom – albeit one with workmen in almost constant attendance’

I’M OFF to stay with an old friend next week and she’s absolutely delighted. Obviously, this comes as no surprise to you.

It’s only natural that someone – anyone really – would be thrilled beyond measure at the thought of a few days in close proximity to my good self. However, she is especially happy because it means she’s finally getting some stuff done about the house.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I would like to stress that she’s not some kind of slattern living in total squalor until a house guest pitches up at the door threatening to kip on her sofa for a few nights. Granted, she’s not a mad clean freak, but it’s far from a case for Kim and Aggie.

What I meant is that she’s banishing all those bothersome bits and bobs around the house. Sorting all those sneaky snags. You know the kind of thing – the bathroom lock that fell off, oh months ago. The loose handle on the inside of the lounge. The creaky bedroom door, the uneven garden path. Those minor irritations that we all live with day after day. You don’t even give them a second thought – until someone else comes into your domestic orbit. Without ever really thinking about it, you dodge that bit of the path, you grip the side of the door rather than pull on the handle, you know to lift the creaky door about a centimetre up so that the hinges don’t squeal and – since it’s only family – you couldn’t care less about the lock on the cludgie door.

But then people come to visit your charming home and you sound like a complete loon as you bark instructions at them. “Mind that wobbly paving stone. Don’t pull that door handle. You’ll need to whistle when you’re in the loo. Sorry about those hinges, I haven’t managed to find the WD40.”

And those are just the wee things. What about a washing machine that will only work if you bang the door really closed hard, open it again and then only wash things on a delicate silks wash? A mate of mine lived with that for nearly two years. She got quite used to it and only nagged her other half about it intermittently. I’m sure he thought that if he ignored her, the problem would somehow just melt away. Until his mother announced she was coming on a state visit. Before you could say, “I know a lovely wee guest house round the corner,” her hubby had a John Lewis delivery team at the front door with a shiny new Hotpoint in their van.

You could go to the other extreme, of course. A friend’s mother has a permanent rolling programme of redecoration, renovation and refurbishment. Every 18 months or so, the entire house is as new. Her home is like a showroom – albeit one with workmen in almost constant attendance. She lives her life as the Queen does really – going through life believing that the whole world smells of fresh emulsion paint.

And so I give you fair warning. We’ve just passed the “six weeks until Christmas” marker and up and down the land, people are starting to notice those wee things that haven’t bothered them in the least for the past ten months or so. But now your sister-in-law has said that yes, they’d all be delighted to come for Christmas. You know what that means. Time to actually go and hunt out that WD40 – you know you can’t put it off any longer.