Our latest plan is to build an extension; with teenage children, the house is bursting at the seams. The answer is to extend the study, pull down the garage and build a games room. That’s the easy bit. The hard part is deciding when, where, how big, and, more especially, how it’s going to look. Everyone has a bright idea except me. Polly came up with a brilliant plan for the wash kitchen; Stacey has wonderful ideas of how to make the most of our spectacular view. I continue to contribute nothing. On Sunday, we went to look at some work our architect had done on another house in the village. It looked excellent, although I could feel myself struggling to take in the details almost as I was looking at it. Then, in an instant, my heart sprang.

Outside on the paving stones were a dozen owl pellets. Clearly, one of the local tawny owls used this new roof on which to regurgitate the bones and skins of its suppers. Now, if I could have an extension that attracted the local owl population, that would be something special. Suddenly, the whole project has become much more exciting.