My new flat in London

The thing about happiness is that you only know you had it when it’s already gone.

Three days ago, my wife and I moved into our new London apartment. It’s a one-bedroom flat on the ground floor, with our own entrance, and a small patio, large enough to plant flowers and put some garden furniture. Nothing fancy. It came unfurnished. And, because we’re young and strapped for cash, we use two pillows to sit on instead of a couch and dine on the floor, while binge-watching Friends on my MacBook that sits on a stack of books I bought from Waterstones but never read.

This arrangement is temporary, of course. We plan on getting used mid-20th century furniture from eBay soon. My wife, Juliet, is a graphic designer and has an artistic eye for these things. “When things don’t match, it freaks me out,” she says, referring to her perfectionism around choosing not just the furniture, but also the little details around the house: carpets, bathroom mats, soap dispensers, coffee table, towels, toothbrush holders, vacuum cleaners, laundry bags, bookshelves, hairdryers, drying racks, iron boards, irons, fridge magnets, outdoor plants, indoor plants, and poster frames. Everything has to fit colour-wise, style-wise, or, at the very least, age-wise. Mid-20th century with its strict brownish-black and green, yellow, pink velvet colour palette means no bean bags, plastic, or fancy colours around the house.

No means no.