I like the colour red. But I’ve been going off it over the past three years as red specks appear over my pasta and potatoes.

When buying kitchen utensils – particularly something as pedestrian as a colander – I tell myself to ‘think practical, think long-lasting’. But then I spot something pretty-coloured and logic goes out of the window. So here I find myself, three years later, eating paint-speckled vegetables, and loathe to spend more money on a boring old replacement colander.

I’m continually taunted by all those lovely food photos of apples nestled in a paint-perfect colander, or vegetables casually tumbling out of a paint-perfect colander. And I feel like some sort of abuser of kitchen utensils, whose colander is making a cry for help – shedding her skin to show years of neglect. But I can assure you, dear reader, that I have never shown anything other than tenderness toward my dear colander. She’s never gone near a dishwasher. She’s only ever been stroked with the soft, spongy side of a scourer pad. Just my luck that I should end up with such a fragile and temperamental little colander.

I suppose that the moral of the story is that you should choose practicality over prettiness when it comes to buying something like a colander. Am I the only one who has made this mistake? Or are you also taunted by beautiful, but useless kit in your kitchen?