{humour} You, me and a colour catalogue

Home improvement tests character and relationships like few other activities

- REHANA MUNIR

STAYING ON TREND If you really want to put your relationship to the test, try a home improvement project together

It's early evening and there's a hammer going tak-tak-tak in the near distance, like an overenthusiastic auctioneer's gavel. I'm grateful, because this dull throb has replaced an insistent drilling that's made any attempt at thought or rest impossible for most of the day. The charming old bungalow that overlooks my flat is deep in the throes of renovation. I'm afraid that the results of this makeover will be grand, shiny and disappointing, the neighbourhood's very own central vista, standing on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, as Green Day sang.

Fear of brown paper packages