I remember when I surprised Dave with the painted spare room. He came home from work to find me giddy with excitement and all but dragging him from the front door to the first of the spare bedroom doors. I stood in front of the door, smiling, nervous, eager to show Dave my days work as he waited bewildered.
While running errands that day I'd picked up some paint and keeping it to myself when my husband called, I covered the room in coats of deep robins egg. Painted birds on branches perched on the walls and sat atop doors, transforming the space to me from spare room to nursery.
Success. Dave was duly impressed.
The room waited, painted and empty. Once I fell pregnant all sorts of nursery objects began to slowly move in. A rocking chair, a cot, a change table, baby clothes, nappy bin...
I remember when I was pregnant, I would sit in the room and day dream about the arrival of the baby. I would clean and rearrange. Things have been added, things have been grown out of and things have changed. My father gave me the apricot crate that sits on his set of drawers, home now to books and toys. Those drawers were ours as children. That print we sent home from Amsterdam. Those curtains made by my Mum. Parts of myself and my family for my baby. A room full of love and meaning.
