This house that I love and hate in almost equal measure has been my 'project' for the last eleven years. I have toiled and sweated to make it into a place in which I want to be. I have done many of the projects myself, alone and unaided, including fitting ceramic tiled floors, changing the terrible, poor quality fixtures and fittings that the previous owners put in for high quality, beautiful alternatives. Since DM moved in here, we have shared the design and work to achieve this goal. This year has brought me a new resolve – I am determined to finish the job I started all those years ago.

Sometimes, the jobs have been simply too daunting for me. Not because I can't do the work myself - I can do plumbing and wiring tasks perfectly capably - I know there will be cynics out there who think that is nonsense but it's true. My early life with David was spent helping him to rewire his house before we sold it. Even he didn't believe I could do it and I surprised and amazed him by just getting on with it. The reason why I get daunted is that I have so little time to myself that the thought of spending what I have up a ladder or up to my elbows in plumbing just depresses me.

When I have not been able to do a job myself, up-to-now I have used Tony, my dear friend Susie's husband to do the work. He's been really patient with me because his business is in Oxford yet he has trecked 40 miles each way to do work for me. I have always felt hugely guilty about this but have continued to ask him because I've trusted his work so implicitly. He's a star but I know he must dread me asking him to do a job for me!

Other people can rip apart a house in a few months and put it back together again themselves but I just don't have time.

So, after eleven years, three rooms remained untouched by either Alstead or Mingay hands - two bathrooms and the hall and stairs. Today that has changed. Not because I have suddenly decided that the only way I want to spend my evening after a long day at work is to attack the bathroom but because I hit on an ingenious solution.....even though I do say so myself.

Our bathroom has been gutted (the beige suite with the cracked bath has gone, as has the leaky loo and the tiles with the delightful(!) Roman frieze have gone to the great bathroom scrapyard in the sky....well Bracknell dump anyway) and prepped for its new life as a gleaming white palace of a room. The best bit is I've not had to do anything to make this happen other than choose the new suite (bathstore.com for anyone who's interested) and tiles. It's all happened while I've been working on my day job as if by magic.

What ingenuity made this possible? Well, my Dad retired in the middle of last year and my little sis phoned me one day and said she was a bit worried because he didn't seem to be settling into retirement well. She said he seemed restless and a bit lacking in purpose. Hardly surprising given that many would have regarded him as something of a workaholic. I hit on the idea of asking him if he'd like to top up his retirement fund by being my plumber and I would pay him the going rate for the work but with the certain knowledge that he'd do the best job imaginable with no corner cutting or shoddy workmanship, just a high-quality, honest job. He accepted.

Yee haa!

This is him at some ungodly hour this morning when he arrived full of the joys of spring to start his second day of bashing hell out of it. Not only is he doing the stuff that I'd pay a plumber to do but he's also doing all the 'finishing' too so he's even doing the painting etc. I can't tell you
how much that means to me. When I was a young woman he devoted every weekend for six months to help me to gut my first home and turn it from near dereliction to somewhere liveable. He gave me my leg-up onto the property ladder and I've never forgotten that kindness. Now, he's still doing it out of kindness but at least this time he gets some reward.

Now I know it's only a few days since I was last extolling his undoubted virtues but again I find myself thanking my lucky stars to have him for my Dad.

Last year I was thinking about my babies