Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

Real life | 2 November 2017

It was difficult but I have managed to order a kitchen that is not attempting to win the Man Booker Prize

issue 04 November 2017

‘The colour of this kitchen is inspired by a blend of heather, bracken and the mountains of the Isle of Skye,’ says the brochure.

‘Oh, sweet Lord,’ I think. ‘I just want a kitchen.’

Five months into the renovation and my fondest wish is simply for it all to be over before Christmas. But for that to happen I must stop browsing endless catalogues making preposterous claims about MDF units evoking the magic of the Isle of Skye and order a kitchen from the only place that doesn’t threaten to bankrupt me.

I end up in a trade joinery centre where the gamekeeper has a mate, and the keeper stands behind this mate as the mate works up a quote on his screen, and all the while the keeper is saying, in his soft West Country accent that is, disconcertingly, both friendly and sinister at the same time: ‘I want to see that come down a bit or I won’t be happy.

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