The bathroom is at the top of the stairs on the way to the bedroom, so I take a detour and turn on the taps, then start stripping off as I head down the landing. This is a small, Victorian terraced house and I’ve spent an inordinate number of hours sanding off layers of paint to reveal original pine doors and skirting boards. My knowledge of paint stripper is second-to-none. The house used to be in the shadow of the old gasworks and at one time you couldn’t give properties away in this street. Now the gasworks has gone and even the scruffy parts of St Albans have been spruced up. So, of course, the houses carry a hideous premium because they’re within walking distance of the mainline railway station and the city is slap-bang in the middle of a prime commuter belt. Even J. K. Rowling, with all her dosh, would quake at some of the prices round here, believe me. Still, it’s a very cosy place and not just because of its neat proportions. I’ve decorated it all in shades of rich cream and gold and sumptuous burgundy, and everything glows warmly. I love coming home in the evenings to my little love nest. I don’t think Jake is that mad on it though. He’s more of your minimalist type of guy. My boyfriend hankers after one of those trendy loft-conversions overlooking St Catherine’s dock or somewhere complete with steel staircase, slate floor, state-of-the-art mood lighting and a wall-to-wall sound system. I like paintings that look like things—sunsets, landscapes, animals. Jake favours red splotches on plain white canvas, preferably three metres square. Maybe he’ll mellow when we have the baby. Perhaps then he’ll concede that steel staircases and toddlers are an unhealthy mix. Not that we have steel-staircase money, anyway. We are currently IVF paupers and I think I ought to address that with Jake too. It’s about time that our stretched finances were turned towards something more hedonistic. I’ll suggest that we have a nice, romantic holiday somewhere hot and glamorous—the Caribbean springs to mind—before we embark on our next drugs frenzy. It may be our last chance to get away by ourselves for a while. People often say that if you relax and stop thinking about having babies, then quite frequently you get pregnant naturally—actually, they say it to me far too often. I could tell you two dozen different stories about people teetering on the edge of adopting a Chinese orphan or buying a border collie only to find that miraculously and without surgical intervention they were knocked up. Wouldn’t that be great, to come back from the Bahamas with a home-made baby and a suntan? I would be a fabulous, glowing pregnant woman!