Once my son left for post-graduate studies in the USA, at, as I like to mention, an old New England school called Harvard1, we decided to turn his bedroom into an office.
Given the scale of clean-up required, we were pleased to get it done inside six months. Ever since it has been a congenial homeworking space for me from which torrents of gleaming prose pour out to my dozens of readers.
She and I look at the space differently. I see a happy place, where dust-motes whirl in the sunshine, where I am surrounded by tech, and where I have all I need for life and godliness, namely, silence, solitude, interesting books, a congenial view and the Internet.
My wife, looking at the same space, sees a different country. I mean look at the dust, the tea-stains. And it stinks in here. Moths are building dynasties in the corner. The carpet is littered with pills which grandchildren will come and eat and then die horrible deaths. Your desk, if you can call that pile a desk, is a monument to a deranged mind.
My wife has superb taste: she married me. It just shows how even the good can be off sometimes.