The Landlady: The kitchen of Dorian Gray

My kitchen is truly knackered. Well, it did cost me £902 from Wickes about 20 years ago, so I guess it’s served its purpose. Last year, I was fortunate enough to make friends with a superb wood-worker – W – who I met in The Pub (where else?) and he’s going to hand-make me a new kitchen.

This will apparently cost me little more than buying bog-standard rubbish from a retailer, so I can barely contain my excitement, as you may imagine. The trouble is that W is now very busy for the foreseeable future, which coincides exactly with a time when I am enjoying a bit of extra money, which would enable me to pay him.

But I don’t care, because I’M GOING TO HAVE A DREAM KITCHEN

I have yet again let greed get the better of me and I am letting the ex-bedroom of The Big Son, hence the extra money and a life without much privacy. But I don’t care, because I’M GOING TO HAVE A DREAM KITCHEN. Ironically, earlier this year when I was strapped for cash, W was almost suicidal with lack of work, so it’s annoying that now I’ve got the money, he has no time.

Last night in the pub, we were gloomily discussing the future of the planet and I joked that W’s handbuilt kitchen would probably outlast life as we know it and would certainly outlast me. We then had a vision of my youthful and beautiful kitchen being my equivalent of a painting of a youthful yours truly in the attic. If the kitchen ever comes to fruition, I shall instruct my lodgers to keep it sparkling and immaculate and not burn any unwanted holes in the surfaces, lest they burn my very soul.

My friend W joked that my heart would be a can of tuna in the corner of one of the cupboards which must never be opened. Clearly we are having theoretical fun with all this, but for now my dream kitchen must remain just that… a dream.