My friend has just bought a house in Co Wicklow and hard as I try it's proving impossible not to make comparisons with my own humble abode.
It's true that I opted for city living, a terraced palace within walking distance of work, but then no-one bothered to tell me it was possible to buy a house within my budget that boasted a back garden with an actual stream running through it. It goes without saying I am thrilled to bits for my friend. Thrilled, I tell you.
I wouldn't mind but my Status Anxiety had already reached crisis levels after another friend had a hot tub (a hot tub!) installed in her back yard. Now Mr Lord of the Manor has gone one better with a natural water feature that would have Diarmuid Gavin drawing up plans for gazebos and all sorts. Is it just me or is Diarmuid oddly fanciable in those television ads for recycling? Just me then.
Anyway, my friend is planning to get decking installed down by the babbling brook. He is going to string fairy lights through the trees. I ooh and aaah and go home and glower at my L-shaped patch of back yard. It would take a lot more than a few fairy lights, I mutter accusingly at the concrete.
If his incredible back garden wasn't enough of a slap in the face to us poor Town Mice, his master bedroom boasts a skylight, a bed fashioned from reclaimed wood and an en suite bathroom with a corner bath/jacuzzi. His kitchen/dining room is of Nigella proportions and it is home to one of those massive American fridges often seen in the homes of rappers on MTV's Cribs. He has so much space in his new pad that he can afford to use one of the bedrooms as a home for all his Star Wars toys. I know it's only Wicklow but it feels like a galaxy far, far away.
If I am jealous, and let's face it I am a tad jealous, it's mainly because after just a few weeks his house already seems to contain everything that a fully functioning home needs. I am talking about things like proper dining room chairs as opposed to family cast-offs prone to break under guests during dinner parties. I am talking about shelves, a whole wall of them, so that one's extensive book collection isn't collecting dust on the floor. I am talking about artworks and scented candles and sumptuous sofas you never want to get out of except to take another sip of mulled wine. Needless to say he makes excellent mulled wine at the drop of a clove and keeps his brandy in a minimalist decanter.
I am talking about tableware. He and his girlfriend invited us to dinner the other day and I couldn't help but notice the elegant china vegetable dishes with lids on which meant the carrots and savoy cabbage kept warm while we ate our delicious pork in apple and wholegrain mustard sauce. I didn't even know such serving dishes existed. We only just got a milk jug the other week and it felt like a major purchase, while he already has a huge steel drawer filled entirely with cooking implements. He has a compost bin. And he has tongs. Really, really good ones.
I would be even more jealous if it wasn't for the fact that having first-hand experience of my green-eyed nature my friend has already made me a very generous offer that I would just like to set down in detail here just in case he tries to back out of it later on. Essentially, I have been elected Chief House Minder so that whenever he goes on holidays or business trips, me and the boyfriend can high tail it down to the sticks and pretend we own the place for the duration. We can sit by the stream, we can open and close the big fridge, we can put stuff in the compost bin and generally act like proper adults and not like people who, a year and a half after moving in to our own house, are still sitting on beanbags. State-of-the-art beanbags imported from Germany, but beanbags nonetheless.
The basic message here is always make sure you have at least a few friends who live above your means and don't mind you commandeering their houses occasionally. I know another Wicklow-based couple with a sitting room so big it could fit a three-piece-suite and a pool table which, apart from their wonderfully good company, always made their home an attractive destination.
Displaying a worrying set of priorities they got rid of the pool table when they had their baby, but they still have what I consider to be the best bath in Ireland. Unlike my own bath, which has to be topped up with kettles of hot water and even then is too shallow to give any real pleasure, theirs is deep enough and long enough to ensure hours of bathing heaven. Even writing about their terrific tub makes me want to hop on the train and go down to see it. I mean them. Honest.