I remember

Kirstie Allsopp on

“mummy” fashion, TV and first impressions of Phil Spencer

I remember… once when I was tiny being close to something blurry and cold.

A few years ago I was in a flat and I wanted to look out of the window. The net curtain fell against my face before I touched the glass and it was the same sensation. I asked my mother why I had such a strong memory of it; she explained that, when I was a baby,

she used to hold me up under the net curtain to wave goodbye to my father as he headed up the street to work.

…moving house a lot until I was five years old. My parents have

always spent money on property and we lived in lovely homes. I passionately loved the house in Berkshire where I lived until the age of 17, although my father described it as a Victorian boarding school. It was in a beautiful location—a requirement as important for my parents as it is for me.

…the sunroof on our pale blue Volvo. It was quite glamorous to

have a sunroof and sometimes I would just go and sit in the car and gaze up at the clouds scudding by. I liked the feeling that the car itself seemed to be moving.

…walking into our kitchen and seeing my little brother Henry

eating a lot of pills. I dashed to tell my mother, who then rushed us both off to hospital. They were fluoride tablets but no one knew quite how many Henry had swallowed, so he had to have his stomach pumped. And then they pumped mine too, despite my protestations of total innocence. But the greatest indignity of all was that we spent the night in the hospital and I had to

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