My husband’s love for his second home

12:23pm Monday 7th July 2008

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I haven’t told my husband because I don’t want him to get too excited, but today sees the start of National Shed Week.

Since acquiring our first garden four years ago, the shed has become the hub of my husband’s existence, and if he knows there is a move across the country urging people to make more of their sheds, he will almost certainly drag our duvet down there and move in for good.

It would be lunacy to divulge that there is a Shed of the Year competition – we wouldn’t see him for cobwebs (and there are some massive ones in his shed – that’s one of the thousand reasons why I will not consider moving there with him).

And it would be foolish to tell him about the ‘We Love Sheds’ website for people like him, who are blatantly having affairs with the wooden structure at the bottom of the garden.

This sort of madness sweeping the country would worry me, were it not for the results of a survey revealing that a whopping 64 per cent – yes, that’s 64 per cent – of people never, or rarely go in their garden shed.

The findings have led Ronseal – the firm behind the survey – to team up with gardening celebrity Charlie Dimmock to offer tips to encourage people to make the most of the sheds.

I’m not sure I like the ideas, which include installing a desk, heater and chair, offering a ‘great private space you can really concentrate in.’ For my husband, our shed is already that – somewhere to hide where he can concentrate on avoiding putting the children to bed. He skulks in the corner, among the pots, waiting until the arguments have stopped, then saunters back to the house, casually asking: “Are the girls in bed?” Any further home comforts and we would never see him.

It’s not that I don’t like our shed. I love its musty smell and calming atmosphere. But I’m not a ‘sheddie’, as those who live and breathe these humble garden constructions call themselves.

My husband is heading that way. I think its only a matter of time before he’s sneaking onto the readerssheds website, sharing his shed with the millions of other shed lovers across the country. I should be grateful for small mercies, be thankful that its not readerswives.

I assumed that National Shed Week would be packed full of shed-related activities – family fun days at the bottom of the garden, shed bric-a-brac sales, that sort of thing. But, apart from a competition to vote for your favourite shed, I couldn’t find anything.

To my surprise, this came as a disappointment. I may not be a ‘sheddie’ but I quite fancy the idea of a party among the gro-bags.

And I didn’t think much of last year’s winning shed – a Grecian temple affair that, to me, looked distinctly un-shedlike. Sheds should remain sheds, otherwise their charm is lost.

Now, after lambasting my husband for shed addiction, I’m getting all het up over them too.

Come to think of it, moving in there isn’t such a bad idea. Living in the shed and renting out the house is a great way of beating the credit crunch.