1. You don't feature in holiday photos because there are no such photos. You were always told to get out of the picture. There is, however, a lengthy slideshow of interesting buildings.
2. Your trips from A to B were never direct because you always had to stop to see the interesting new building at point C (A health care centre, unpopular viewing tower or library) along the way.
3. There were no flowering plants in your landscaped garden because obviously they are horrific and tasteless. It's all about "form" not colour.
4. You never had a Christmas tree or Christmas decorations but sometimes there was an interesting branch in the house in December covered in found objects.
5. Broken appliances and junk were never thrown out, merely converted into installations, hung from the ceiling or put on plinths in the garden.
6. The only comfortable carpets in the house were North African and hung on the walls.
7. Your house featured in a magazine where it looked amazingly minimal, but in reality it had denigrated into a messy dump. It later featured in a reality show called Inhabited by Humans.
8. Your parents sacrificed comfort and warmth for "clean lines". Those lines quickly disappeared under plastic toys, piles of laundry and clutter.
9. Basic things like plumbing and light fixtures never worked because your parents were waiting for the ideal "piece" to arrive from Italy. The concept of "house" is a work in progress.
10. You feel uneasy going into houses where there is coloured paint on the walls or furniture that is too soft. Your sense of style is forever influenced by the white walls and low hard edged furniture and bench-style seating you grew up with. Your subconscious mind attempts to replicate "the look" in your own house but your conscious sense of comfort can't quite capitulate.
11. Your parents' attempts to integrate work and home into one space means that they often ended up sleeping in the office, working in the kitchen and children were encouraged to spend as much time as possible out of the house "doing their own thing".'
...... and it didn’t do us any harm at all!!
