Next was the issue of the tiles to go around the heirloom Aga, and behind both the electric hob (I'm not as stupid as I look: belt and braces always) and the huge double sink and drainers.
In my new state of delusion and grandeur 'Topps Tiles' was out of the question: Fired Earth was obviously my next port of call, in a rather lovely converted water mill about an hour from the house. Fresh coffee was offered, Aga gadgets (yet another retailing opportunity I hadn't anticipated) perused, and hundreds of tiles examined for hue, shape, finish, size - my indecision knew no bounds. I was scared of getting it wrong on a mammoth scale: the waste of money, the loss of face, the ruined opportunity - and the scale of the alternatives available was baffling. If someone had said 'Red or yellow, take your pick' it would have been easy. (Neither.) But with 'Aqua, Navy, Sea, Moss, Lichen, Turquoise, Sky and Lincoln' to choose from, I was hyperventilating in record time. And the knowledge that this was only one room, and that we yet had the bathrooms to do, didn't help.
Eventually I chose seven different colours of a fairly small square tile with a lovely shiny finish and got a couple of each packaged up to take home and show Eeyore. All was going well, and he approved immediately of my excellent choice - until the whole lot was costed and the hitherto lovely lady said that we were looking at the wrong end of £5,000 for the lot.
Now even I have my limits. I think I used the words 'immoral' and 'ridiculous'. Either way, two days later I was heading up the A1 with my samples on the front seat, heading for a warehouse on the edge of the fens where, I was promised, every tile in the world was represented. Sure enough, there they were: identical in every way but price: I got the whole lot for £750. And while I was at it I got a load of samples for the bathrooms and loos thus, as far as I could see, taking the cost of the petrol for a return trip off the overall bill. What a cheap wife I was proving to be.
Back at home I got a large piece of plywood, put it on the hall floor, and took four agonising days to achieve the dashingly casual random pattern I wanted repeated on the walls. Finally, I was happy. Foreman Pete came in to carry the board into the kitchen.
‘That’s not going to go through the door’ he said, happily. So we nailed a batten to the bottom and tipped it up. No good: the whole thing flexed alarmingly when picked up, and the tiles started to slide.
'Right.' I said, much more calmly than I felt. 'Plan B.'
'A photo!' So while Foreman Pete and The Chef (his son, who moonlighted as a tiler) had a brew, I dug through boxes and piles and rooms of clobber and displaced essentials until I found my digital camera. Triumphantly, I marched into the hall and in the fading light took a couple of pictures of the board on the floor - true, they had to be a bit small to get the whole lot in, but if you concentrated you could work it out and it was with a great sense of having overcome the odds that I went triumphantly to find Foreman Pete and The Chef.
'Great!' said Foreman Pete.
'Except .... ' said The Chef hesitantly, looking sideways at his dad, who buried his face in his mug.
'Except what?' I enquired.
'Except ... I'm colour blind.' said The Chef.
The silence was deafening. Not in my head, where I was screaming, but all across the building site you could suddenly have heard a pin drop.
'Right.' I said, with frightening control. 'So what exactly was the point of the last four days?'
'Well I did wonder ...' he said.
I breathed in and out twice That night, I hatched a cunning plan. I gave each colour a number and labelled each box of tiles on every face (just in case). Then I made and copied a master list of the tile serial number, name, colour (pointless, but just in case) and the number I had given it. Then, at around midnight, I drew a grid of 100 squares, and numbered each one according to the tile that I had decided should go there. Genius. And it worked. It took a very long time to do, but slowly slowly with great care, much checking and a very accurate eye, The Chef applied 352 whole tiles and innumerable slips to bits of the kitchen wall. Where, as I write, most of them are currently obscured by drying washing, or dirty washing-up. Hey-ho.
