A couple of winters ago we enclosed part of an upstairs terrace to make a playroom. After an ongoing saga of leaking roofs , badly-installed air-conditioning units and an unlevelled floor, I may finally be able to exile all the toys upstairs and reclaim the living room. 

But will it be the answer to my prayers? Or will it just be a dumping ground for my daughters’ junk? 

When we decided to enclose the terrace it seemed so simple, the perfect solution to our toy invasion problem. Now, I’m the first to admit that I’m rather lacking in the tidiness department, something I personally put down to being English. (It seems to me that as a nation the Spanish, and here I’m talking about the girls, are much tidier than their British counterparts.) Obviously living in Spain, surrounded by house-proud mothers I do try, but it’s just not in my DNA. I’m also a terrible hoarder, saving egg boxes to make space rockets or crocodiles, plastic trays to use as painting pallets or any shiny paper for ‘sticking’.