In the pink?

Today it struck me that my world has turned pink.  I was fitting new bedlinen – a blush coloured sheet and duvet cover with tones of blush and raspberry interspersed with a very pale teal – when I was overcome with a rush of emotion. The bedding looked so warm, inviting and protective, I just wanted to climb right in and stay there, cocooned.  And in that moment I realised that for months I’ve been unintentionally surrounding myself with pink.

When I repainted my bedroom in the summer I spent ages choosing the colour, went for Golden Jasmine, which looked cream on the paint chart, only for it to turn pale pink when applied to the walls. 

My new full-length linen bedroom curtains, described as lilac on the packet, were, once hung, you guessed it, pink! Then I went further and introduced a raspberry velvet Art Deco style chair with a grey and fuschia fringed shawl draped over the back. 

Well that’s okay, you may say, because it’s your bedroom and pink’s a soothing colour for sleep. Except my pink fascination has leaked out into the rest of the house.

The hallway, which was supposed to be painted two shades of Velvet Truffle – a smooth rich taupe verging on the chocolate – turned out to be two shades of rose. My living room walls are a soft pinky peach that frame a frosty pink velvet cuddler chair. Even my kitchen, which is mainly grey and white, has a splash of pink flamingo in the oven gloves.

My daughters have been teasing me for months about how everything I buy turns to pink, but I truly don’t mean it.  I’ve even been worried that there’s something wrong with the colour receptors in my eyes so I don’t see that things are pink until I get them home.  But looking at the bedding this morning made me think that perhaps I’ve been subconsciously choosing pink for its warm, comforting qualities. Maybe my brain is creating a rose-tinted world where, surrounded with this feelgood, happy colour, I can feel secure – and goodness knows we could all do with feeling more secure!

Or maybe it’s a reaction to the discipline of the past when everything in the house was either yellow or blue because those are the only two colours my husband and I could agree on. Actually blue used to be my favourite colour, I loved it’s clean freshness, the link with the blue sky, the sea and nature, but now the only blue I’ll entertain is sapphire, which of course has huge quantities of red in it, and even then I’d swap it for a bit of blush.

Either way my home has taken on a womb like quality, and I agree that sounds a little scary. But today as the darkness falls early on this chilly winter day, and it’s pouring rain outside, I feel rather cosy and cosseted in my rose-tinted world. Perhaps I’ll keep it like that a little longer…