We rent unfurnished, so always have our own furniture around us. I don't go in TOO much for the soft furnishings (rugs, cushions, curtains, throws), as they are cluttersome and really interefere with a low-maintenance life. Moreover, sadly, my posters, paintings and photographs have had to stay in storage for about five years, due to increasing fussiness by landlords/ -ladies about holes in the walls. HOWEVER, it is crucial to have ENOUGH of your own things around you, so that the web of YOUR things covers over a space which is, essentially, not yours. Minimalism has definite limits. Our last place had revolting dull mustard yellow walls, which definitely needed covering! Bookcases (with books!), a folding screen/ room divider, tension rods to create hanging rails, and one big rug (for the sitting room) come with us everywhere, like the interior of some sort of nomad's yurt! Seasonal and fresh decorations are another way to decorate a temporary home, and they leave only biodegradable waste, rather than broken MDF or shattered plastic! Leaf-skeletons on a string and rosehip-studded twigs (snap off the thorns!) for autumn (Fall). Holly, ivy and dried wildflowers for winter. Fresh wildflowers for spring and summer. Herbs in the kitchen.

I start taking my decorations down in the days after 2nd Jan but usually leave a few bits up until 5th of January, the evening of which, I (and the Church of England) consider to be Twelfth night. It seems logical to me that Christmas Day is the first Day of Christmas, and twelfth night is the last evening before Epiphany. It doesn't make any sense to me to start counting from Boxing Day but I know lots of people believe that it is the night of Epiphany is 12th night and you hear both dates used

I love blue, all shades of it, especially when paired with grey. My favourite item in our new house is my blue swivel chair, the perfect spot to curl up with a good book! As we decorate the house room by room, blue and grey are becoming a recurring theme....

Susangirl, thank you for your understanding. It is not merely that you show some basic human sympathy and decency, though; it is that you have identified the some of the practicalities. I'd like to know what Jan Johnson thinks I should have done instead. I was very well aware of the risk of feathering the owner's nest, but because I was grateful to have any place to stay, as I have said, I worked on the house. And there is also the issue which JJ hads not picked up on, which is that we did not have any choice. The place was essentially unfirnished and in a terrible state. Should we have abandoned any hope of a decent quality of life in case we were finally mistreated? This place was our home. Should we have applied the same approach wherever we went thereafter? What kind of life is that? Not so far from the kind of life people led in the shacks and tied-cottages in pre-war WWII plantations in Louisiana, perhaps, which I'm reading about just now. The comment "Did you think to keep a diary?" is seeking to blame the victims of greed and utter lack of scruple, and indeed conceivably downright fraud. I think about many things, Jan Johnson! A diary does not cut a lot of ice evidentially. What's your point? The kind of fraud which, as the Inland Revenue told me, does not get investigated as often as it should because there is so much of it - I refer to the avoidance of CBT, which is why we were told to leave furniture items behind. So that the house looked occupied. Note too that it was an ex-council house. The owner had bought it from council tenants who had themselves bought it. That's one more affordable property removed from the system.