Vacuuming versus fun? No contest.

I have what I’d call a sensible relationship with housework.

I do it, fairly regularly and reasonably thoroughly, and I find it quite satisfying most of the time.

(My favourite is cleaning out the fridge. Is that weird? Or cupboards. I love sorting cupboards. My mum says that’s a soul-destroying job because no-one knows it’s been done. But I do. I know, oh yes.)

But if it was a choice between vacuuming or going out for lunch/finishing a particularly exciting book/practically anything else, I’d always opt for the latter.

I mean, I’m not insane.

Just the other day, the teenager came home from school to discover a neat and tidy, polished and brushed, sweet-smelling home.

“Oooh, the house looks lovely, Mum,” he said, impressed. “Are we having people over?”

How very dare him, I muttered darkly to myself, before resolving to add a few more chores to his weekly pocket-money-linked list.

It would appear this is a national trait, however.

In a recent survey for floorcare folk Vax, around 13 per cent of people interviewed admitted they only EVER cleaned when they know friends and family are visiting.

The survey, which the company commissioned to celebrate its 40th anniversary, also discovered almost a third of homeowners in Scotland are holding on to décor that’s been in their property for more than four decades.

Or, ‘embracing the design styles from the past’, as they put it, much more kindly.

Apparently more than one in 10 homes feature light fittings, carpets or wallpaper that’s 40 years old or more, with six per cent admitting they have never decorated their home.

Lino floors, Artex ceilings and hanging plants in woven baskets are the top three home trends of the 1970s standing the test of time, with tan leather, pine kitchens and coloured bathroom suites closely following.

But I think this survey fails to take into consideration the whole ‘retro chic’ movement going on in interior design at the moment. You can’t walk into an upmarket furniture store without bumping into a velvet sofa, shag pile rug or tan leather pouf these days.

Parquet floors are back too, and those eyewateringly hideous wallpapers with giant patterns (I can still see the swirly flowery paper we had in our house when I close my eyes and channel my 70s childhood) are all the rage again, like we didn’t learn our lesson the first time.

So while there might be a couple of miserly dinosaurs in the mix, I’m sure most of the 30 per cent of people in this survey who haven’t redecorated since the 70s are in fact entirely practical.

They’re just keeping their fingers crossed that it really is true if you hold on to something long enough it will eventually come back into fashion.