He put fresh paint on the walls of the back bedroom, built both cribs himself from the box up, and chose the stroller after what I can only describe as a research programme.

The painting took him two weekends and involved one argument.

He wanted a colour the tin called Morning Linen, which was essentially white with an apology in it.

I wanted a yellow.

We did a patch of each on the wall by the window and looked at them for four days and then he said, on the Thursday evening, that the yellow was better and that he had known it was better on the Monday and had wanted to be allowed to be right about one thing first.

So the room is yellow.