Do it yourself, I wish I could.

The decorator starts on Monday and I'm going to have to spend as much time as possible out of the house. Not because we don't get on but because, once more, I've put my foot in it.

Finding a good decorator is hard enough. I called one and explained that I wanted the hall, stairs and landing painted and wallpapered (yes, I'm channelling the 1970s vibe and will probably wonder what the hell I was thinking once it's done) and could he pop round and give me a quote? There was that sound, that sucking in of breath, the sound they all make just before they tell you it's going to cost an arm and a leg and they can't do it until 2014 at the earliest.

'Wallpaper? I don't like wallpapering', he said. Great, a decorator who doesn't like decorating. Next.

I'd love to be able to do it myself but I'm a complete disaster when it comes to DIY. My greatest triumph over the last 20 years has been putting up a pair of curtain tie backs. In my head I can install a kitchen, plumb in a bathroom, lay a patio and wallpaper like a dream. The problem though is exactly that, it's all in my head.

I once decided to paint my bedroom and got rather a long way in before realising I was painting the wall with gloss paint. Take down any picture in my house and the wall behind will look as if it's been raked by machine gun fire, there's so many holes from where I've had numerous attempts to get the picture hooks in straight.

In France this summer I decided fairy lights would look good around the terrace but managed to nail the hook straight through the cable, knocking out two thirds of the lights. I was right, they would have looked lovely if more than 30 or so of the 100 bulbs had been working.

I know a woman who single-handedly restored a derelict farmhouse. She re-pointed, tiled the roof, plumbed, re-wired, put in heating, laid bricks. She modestly played down her incredible achievement, saying she couldn't afford to have contractors in so she just got books, read up and got on and did it. If that had been me, that place would have crumbled into a pile of stones rather than become the idyllic country home that she turned it into.

So, finally having found a decorator who actually seemed to like his trade, he popped round to run through what I wanted.

'I'd like the stair bannisters rubbed down and repainted, wallpaper up to the picture rail, the doors repainted and the dildo rail taken down.'

Even as I heard the words come out of my mouth and before I'd even registered the startled expression on his face, it suddenly came to me why one of my closest friends has always described me as speaking English as if it's my second language.

'Dado, dado rail, I meant dado rail,' I spluttered.

It's going to be a long two weeks, for both of us.