Building a family

I must confess to being something of a house and home programme buff. It's probably something to do with being so focussed on house buying and selling over the last year or so. But I'm beginning to wonder whether there are two kinds of people who buy houses; me on one side and everyone else on the other. Because the people who appear in the (mainly Channel 4) lifestyle programmes appear to inhabit a different universe to my humble self. Take Relocation, relocation on Channel 4 tonight. It featured a thirty-something couple who had £1.4 million to spend on a house and wedding venue. This was followed by Grand Designs, where a cutting-edge architect and his wife decided to build a 'passive' eco house, using a system of exterior tiling more usually encountered in medieval Spain. So, I ask...am I going wrong somewhere? Are my aspirations to sand down the banisters and give the hall a coat of Farrow and Ball's House White simply not ambitious enough? Should I be sourcing my window blinds from a sustainable hardwood forest in Estonia rather than B and Q? And would it help if I shaved off my (now) shoulder length hair to make me look more like a participant in one of the above-mentioned programmes?

One curious aspect of all these programs is the incidence of pregnancy. The couple buy a tumbledown house on a desirable plot, then proceed to knock it down and resign themselves to living on site in a draughty caravan for a year and a half whilst the new house goes up. And what happens? Three months into the project, they announce to the presenter that a baby is on the way. The poor child is eventually born in said caravan and lives its first few months in an unheated box, surrounded by camping equipment and primus stoves. What's happening here? Is the act of building/purchase an aphrodisiac in itself? Or is it just a case of poor planning by folk who otherwise appear to be able to plan a house build down to the last nail? Let's face it, these programmes invariably feature a planning officer somewhere along the way. Perhaps that individual could draw up a list of 'to dos' that includes the advice 'attempt to avoid getting pregnant if you are likely to be involved in bricklaying, humping RSJs or digging drains for the next few months.' I'm beginning to wonder whether the pregnancy thing is written into the programme contract, thus giving the presenter a chance to re-visit the finally finished house and meet little Poppy or Oscar. But perhaps this is going too far, even for television. Or is it?