Every night, while my husband reads by screen-light, my mind runs like an invisible rat two miles north to the house we’re rebuilding in Islington. And there it scurries from room to room, around the rotten skirting boards, up walls, into corners: testing, considering, fretting. Carpets or wooden boards? Which doorknobs, latches, hinges? Which white for the walls? What will look best, and what (hang your head, o rat) will your friends envy and admire?
Towards 1 a.m., the rat gets ideas, starts thinking: hmm, polished concrete floors? Maybe a hot tub? And I hear my mother’s voice: Oh darling, no. That won’t do.
Tiles, mirrors, rails, plugs. Only once in the hotchpotch of endless decisions and revisions have I discovered something so lovely that the rat stopped in its tracks. This lovely thing is a wallpaper my mother found.
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