Is it just ME?

Are you regretting your lockdown shopping splurges too?

I USED to be the can’t cook/won’t cook type, then lockdown happened — plus a new foodie boyfriend — and suddenly I can’t move for Nespresso machines and new microwaves, woks and veg boxes. Where is it all going to go? The kitchen in my one-bed London flat is tiny.

It’s partly my fault. When lockdown hit in March, I realised I was ill-equipped on the domestic front. Normally I’m at the cinema and theatre; my evenings spent in restaurants.

So I started making latenight internet impulse buys: tiny Portuguese ceramic dishes for olives and crisps, a salad spinner (you won’t believe how long it takes to drain a lettuce), posh glasses from John Lewis.

Then as restrictions relaxed and we moved into the garden over the summer, I acquired trays and jugs in order to be a better

Now my kitchen is a lethal assault course of gadgets that will land me in A&E

hostess. Impressed by this culinary frenzy, friends and family have tried to bring out my inner Nigella. So over Christmas, I received a pile of gadgets — most, I’m ashamed to say, still sitting in their boxes.

I’m clearly not the only one suffering lockdown overload. This year Waitrose and John Lewis reported rising sales of breakfast accessories.

Sales of vegetable boxes boomed and we spent £2 billion on coffee machines to replicate our regular coffee experience at home.

This is the era of buying Pointless Things that take up space. I even acquired a wine rack this week (last glimpsed in The Good Life in 1975). Now I just need to build a new wall to house it.

It has to stop. Once the kitchen was my favourite cosy spot for reading with a G&T. Now it’s lethal assault course that will land me in A&E.