A few weeks ago, as I specified the finishing touches to our latest project, I was struck by just how much Britain has changed. And not always for the better.
A few generations ago, bravery was going off to fight in a World War.
Today it's choosing not to have a kitchen island with something called a 'breakfast bar'.
It seems we've become a bunch of limp-wristed interior obsessives, agonising over the endless variety of greys on the Little Greene and Farrow & Ball colour charts. Having sleepless nights about whether to plump for 3 seater sofas or a possibly more 'on trend' corner unit. Worrying whether or not the wood floor planks we've chosen are as wide as today's fashion dictates.
I'm as guilty of this as anyone, but it doesn't make me feel any better about myself.
I can't imagine my grandfather (or father, for that matter) caring one iota what the kitchen looked like, or what colour the walls were, or whether the bathroom was a wet room or not (assuming, that is, they actually had a bathroom).
Their lives were more about survival; about putting 'bread on the table', about whether they could afford to buy us new school shoes, about keeping a roof over our heads rather than what was under that roof.
I suppose recent events to commemorate WW1 have brought this all into sharp focus.
The nearest I've come to a dank, dark, muddy trench is the dig-out for our new basement. And that sort of says it all.
I have been spoilt. My children even more so. Aren't we lucky.
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