The first room I rented was my university dorm: six paces long, and three across, with a single bed, a desk, washbasin and wardrobe. It felt gigantic. It was bigger than my room at Mum’s, and offered such luxuries as not smashing your face on the wall if you rolled over too energetically, and not having to sit disconcertingly close to guests on the bed in lieu of seating. But it was also the gateway to a new universe.
Here my life was going to change. At that desk I’d lose myself in the literary greats. Far from the prying eyes of the Asian aunties and uncles of my neighbourhood, I would exercise poor judgment, near daily.
Nothing epitomised this new sophistication more than the glimmering emblem on the washbasin: the mixer tap. A little touch of Europe in Coventry: c’est chic! No more flitting between scalding hot and ice cold for me.
Since graduating, I can only dream of such bathroom comforts as a mixer tap and, if I’m really lucky, underfloor heating. Which is why, this week, I’m losing myself in Bamburgh House in Henley-on-Thames (for sale on Davis Tate), a grand five-bed offering a staggering four bathrooms complete with double basins, towel radiators and his-and-hers mixer taps. This is the house that Egyptian cotton built; an impossible idyll of domestic bliss.
It’s the separate faucet life for me, for now. Still, at least I have an electric toothbrush.
