I COULD be wrong, but I’m pretty sure the image above this column is, as they say, “posed by a model”.

Surely nobody’s home work space is that immaculate. Firstly, the desk is so suspiciously neat it doesn’t look as if much work gets done on it. I once read that a tidy desk is a sign of being a psychopath, and I’m inclined to think that’s true.

Secondly, the domestic set-up looks eerily calm. Pastel cushions casually placed on a white sofa...clearly not the sofa of anyone who has children, pets or visitors. Nor anyone who would ever sit on it with a glass of red wine or a pasta bake TV dinner.

And thirdly, the woman at the desk, who appears to be greeting her colleagues with a Vulcan salute, looks not just presentable, but well groomed. What kind of home worker is she? She’s the posed-by-model kind.

I’ve been working from home for over two months now and my kitchen table is the cluttered mess I laughingly refer to as my desk. My laptop, or “the wretched thing” as it’s come to be known, is surrounded by piles of notepads and whatever passed for a notepad in the early days of lockdown when I searched the house trying to find something to write on. There’s a chipped mug filled with pens and highlighters (I’m old school); two mobiles (both constantly plugged in, charging up); bits of paper with names and phone numbers scrawled across them; half a cup of cold tea; and several empty packets of Mini Cheddars, because I graze on them all day. Red Leicesters are particularly good for concentration.

There’s no room in my fruit bowl for fruit. Instead it’s filled with more bits of paper, rogue Mini Cheddars and, inexplicably, a bag of Werther’s Originals. Somewhere, underneath something, is my diary, which is meant to make me feel organised. My mouse mat is a place mat; a quaint relic from the halcyon days when my kitchen table was used for something other than work.

I love my kitchen table. I grew up with it; it’s lovely, rustic, Victorian and I have many fond memories of it - family meals, my mum sorting piles of ironing on it, sitting around it with mates after the pub, playing games on it with the kids, chatting over a pot of tea. So much life has happened around that table, it means a lot to me and now it’s in my own kitchen.

But one thing it isn’t is an adequate ‘home work station’. Sitting at a 170-year-old table, on an old wooden chair, for hours on end leaves me so stiff I can’t get up without making the fretful noise my gran used to make when she got up to check on the potatoes.

There are things I like about working from home - logging on while I put the toast on, with no commute to face; cracking on in peace without noisy distractions of the office; the casual attire (life without sweat pants is now unthinkable); taking an occasional screen break to carry out the domestic chores that clear my mind; singing Abba songs as I work. But I slump awkwardly over my keyboard, my neck aches pretty much all the time, and the other day I read a chilling article about bad posture and how it wreaks havoc on the spine.

So I’ve decided the time has come for a home office. Which means re-arranging my spare room to somehow make space for a desk. I’ve got fancy ideas about a swivel chair and a serious bookcase and calling it “the study”. I’ll look poised and thoughtful in Teams meetings, instead of confused and a bit sunburnt. I’ll be like the girl in the picture, with good posture and sleek hair - and Mini Cheddars on my psychopath desk.