Thanks you to you all for your great feed back. Claire to answer your question, lighting is such a great investment and essential to any UK garden where the light fades and for many months your garden is appreciated through the cold months from the warmth of the interior space. What good is it if you can't see it in the evening! its not too late to lay cables along the back of your flower beds, the cable can be laid just below the surface of the soil for ease of maintenance. Lighting up foliage is the best way to illuminate a garden. It softens the light in much the same way as lamp light in a room. Its always best not to see the actual source of the light but instead highlight plants and features such as walls, sculptural elements or water features. Its worth every penny. Good luck with your project!

I remember buying a dish rack from the Conran shop when I got my first flat years ago, just because it looked funky! Thanks for the memory jog! But in today’s kitchens I think they would seem out of place unless you had some eclectic place that looked like perhaps an artists loft that could be in a film, or something like that. :)

Haha, a dishwasher. :) Without being too sexist I hope, I'm a man myself after all, but that is possibly a male type of answer. We have a dishwasher (not even in our main home though) but there are for ever small things that need to be cleaned, vegetables to be washed etc, so there's always some kind of drainage needed, washing machine present or not. We use a draining rack with a hard plastic tray underneath. Maybe not the height of fashion (although ours is a firey red... :-) ) but it does the job.

Agree with Jonathan - lots of choice on auction sites and mostly reclaimed so absolutely the best choice in terms of environmental impact. (Also from a cost point of view too!). There’s also a few new traditional styles that have soap draining areas (from what I can see, they are mainly recessed areas that have a draining point, so not strictly a soap dish). Heritage is just one brand that have several models that might fit the bill. Sadly I think all options are more traditional styles. If you want a more contemporary look, there’s loads of nice soap dishes on the market.