Why I’m sleeping in the garden shed

Two and a half years ago, I wrote a column about how I’d started sleeping in my garden office. No, not because Caroline had kicked me out of the master bedroom, but because we were having the house rewired and the builders needed us to vacate our room at seven o’clock every morning. The move was supposed to be temporary, but I liked the arrangement so much it became permanent. Unfortunately it’s causing a few tensions in the marriage.

Most wives who have had to put with their husband’s snoring for more than 20 years would welcome this set-up, but Caroline is a bit nonplussed. She doesn’t miss the nightly tug-of-war over the duvet, or me trying to sneak in without waking her after a night on the tiles (imagine a hippopotamus in a furniture showroom). Rather, she doesn’t like the idea of me not being in the house in case we suffer a home invasion in the night. Which is a legitimate concern in Acton. A couple of dodgy customers tried to break into my neighbour’s house a few years ago at 3 a.m. and he chased them down the street with a golf club. He was naked and barefoot at the time, but they decided not to tackle him, which was a wise choice.

I pointed out to Caroline that I’m half the man my neighbour is and would be about as much use as a toothless guard dog. Hang on, she said. It isn’t just burglars she’s worried about, but foxes too. Again, a reasonable concern in our neck of the woods. Last year, Caroline was woken in the middle of the night when Mali, our three-year-old cavapoochon, started barking and frantically clawing at the bedroom door.