I LIKE to brag about the fact that I’m a bit of a slut — in the good, old-fashioned, slovenly housewife way, not the sleeping around kind, obviously.

But actually, that’s a lie (not about sleeping around) because I like a bit of housework now and again, when I’m in the mood and have the time.

It’s a kind of therapy… like gardening or writing this column.

The reason I brag about being a slummy mummy, in the same way that I’m always joking about being a bad mother, is that I have to make choices — just like every other working woman — and the one thing I happily choose to drop is the illusion of being perfect.

Housework or sanity. Sanity or housework. Hmmm…. let me think for a minute. It’s a toughy. Because there are moments when, frankly, insanity and a bit of time-out, locked up somewhere soft and quiet, in a drugged-out haze, does sound like a bit of an option.

So the house comes at the bottom of my list of priorities, most of the time.

However, last week the new man in my life offered to help me do something I haven’t attempted in all my years as a single mum… decorating.

He turned up bright and early, with dust sheets and massive power tools. And as soon as we started I remembered why I’ve avoided it for years.

The plan was that we had four days with no work and we were going to decorate the hall and porch… that’s three floors, two landings, eight doors, windows, bannisters, the lot.

I must first tell you that just before I moved to this house, four years ago, I heard a female comedienne telling a concerned friend that she couldn’t have children.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the friend said. “How sad. Why is that?”

“Because I have white carpets,” was the reply.

Well, I too have white carpets. In the hall. But I also have three children. Can you think of anything more stupid?

The sensible thing would have been to get rid of the children. But my ex and I fought over who should have them, and I lost.

Over the four years the white hall (walls, ceiling, paintwork, carpet, everything — it’s like a padded white cell nightmare) has become gradually greyer, muddier and badly chipped.

You know how some sad people preserve tiny baby shoes or footprints in plaster or bronze? Well I don’t need to. I had my children’s imprints permanently displayed over every surface in the hall.

Or I did. Until last week.

For some reason which I now can’t quite fathom, we decided that the easiest option was to re-paint it all white. I think I got into the paint section at the DIY superstore and had a panic attack.

But I did what I always do when I am having a panic attack. I remain outwardly icily calm. It seems to fool people most of the time.

I did not like to admit to the new man in my life that, actually, choosing paint is something that I really need at least five or six months notice on. So I acted as if I thought white would be fine.

The next bit was easy. Big long rollers, smooth surface. Twelve hours later, lots of cups of tea, a takeaway dinner, a sick child totally ignored on the sofa, and all the walls and ceilings were brilliant white. It looked great.

The problems started on day two. As I didn’t want to admit that choosing a new colour was too difficult for my small brain, I decided that I wanted the woodwork to be white.

But not brilliant white. I liked the subtly off-white colour of the existing woodwork.

I went back to the paint shop on my own to get 10 litres of white satinwood.

I couldn’t find any, so I asked the assistant.

Now it’s hard to imagine the absurdity of the following conversation unless you’re standing in a giant warehouse surrounded by tins of paint from floor to ceiling (remember the bit at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark? Where they hide the ark of the covenant in a storage hangar full of boxes that goes on into infinity. Like that).

Basically, I’m surrounded by millions and zillions of litres of paint. And I ask the assistant for white paint. And she says: “We don’t do white paint.” I get the giggles. She scowls.

They have brilliant white, she says. But not white. Not in satinwood. Not in a big tin. She says I’d have to go to their bigger store in Exeter for that. Or up the road to a paint specialist.

I go up the road to the paint specialist. He says Crown only do brilliant white satinwood. But Dulux do just white. (It may have been the other way around, but whatever). It costs me a fortune, but I think ‘Hurrah for the paint specialist. Nice to see a man who knows what he’s doing’. I go home.

We paint the woodwork. It takes three days. It’s actually not white. It’s brilliant white. I feel conned.

But never mind. Now the problem is that because middle of the house is so bright white, everything else looks dirty… especially that white carpet.

I had planned to finish decorating and get it cleaned. Except that, as well as the muddy footprints and tea stains, it now has splodges of non-removable, white paint all over it. Help!