I have been painting the Grand Hall of my house, which incidentally is 1m2. My other half says it looks much better than before. I think the paint now highlights all the imperfections in the walls and the old radiator, the cracked door frame and scuffed skirting board. These imperfections invisible prior to my contribution, now really annoy me.

Meanwhile, my other half is tiling in the West Wing, aka the bathroom. I think it looks fabulous, so much better than before. Yet all he can see is the gap between the centre tile is 2mm narrower than the tile above it. Had he not pointed this out, I would never have noticed. This imperfection really annoys him.

In both cases it's not perfect, but better than it was before and in actual fact - it is fine, it does the job more than adequately.

And yet it niggles...

We want perfection