Emotional ties with Interior designer Katharine Pooley

Interior designer Katharine Pooley

Every Christmas, I record my goals for the year ahead – whether it’s to spend more time with my husband or to exercise more. I’ve been aiming to cut out sugar for the past five years. This year, I’ve finally done it. My motto is: write things down and they will come true…eventually.

For my father’s 80th birthday three years ago, I took him to Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma. I used to live in Hong Kong so I know Asia well. I bought this handmade, hammered silver bowl at a market in Burma. It just about fitted in my suitcase.

Piglet is my 18-year-old jack russell terrier. He’s my soul mate – and the most spoilt dog in the world. On a hot night, I tell my husband to sleep on the floor so that Piglet can sleep in bed with me where he’ll be more comfortable.

We go to Forter Castle in the Scottish Highlands as a family every summer. When my father Robert bought it nearly 30 years ago, he rebuilt it from ruins. I did the interiors. It has no TV, no internet and no telephone. Instead, we go clay pigeon shooting, throw dinner parties and hire bagpipers. Bliss!

Left: We have at least 12 guitars as a family. This is our travel one. My husband and I once played it on a plane and the passengers sang along. Coldplay, Katy Perry and Queen top the list, but I’m more of a Celine Dion fan. Right:  My favourite whisky is Japanese. Yoichi is a single malt made by Masataka Taketsuru, a Japanese man who once worked at a Scottish distillery in the 1920s and created his own whisky back home. He took all of our secrets and made the whisky even better.

My sons Jack [seven] and Charlie [five] are very creative. I would love to keep every drawing, but it’s a logistical nightmare. Doodle Nest converts their work into books. I can’t help keeping the odd original, though. I’ve framed one – I’m biased, but it looks like a Picasso.

My husband Daniel is tennis-crazy. This year our family holiday was at a tennis camp run by Serena Williams’s coach in the South of France. I play against Daniel every Saturday, but although I have a Babolat Pure Aero racquet – the model used by Rafael Nadal – I never win.