What does your front door say about you?

Our front door is black.  It was this colour when we moved in and we haven't got around to changing it.  A black door is said to suggest authority; seriousness; order and reservedness.  Certainly those are the kind of traits you would expect for somewhere like No. 10 - probably the most famous front door in Britain (regardless of whether the current, or any previous incumbents live up to that or not).

I guess that's right.  I mean, how seriously would we take a PM who lived behind a cerise door?

But are these character traits for me?  Well let's take a closer look at my door.  It's more than just a colour.

Abandoned scooters entangle unsuspecting postman with their handles.  Not just one scooter, but two.  I don't know why, since there's only one child living here, but why have one scooter cluttering up your porch when you can have two? And then there's the discarded boots of all shapes and sizes.  Remnants of family walks, encrusted with mud, kicked off at the door, which we've meant to return to and clean but somehow never get around to.  There's a collection of sticks, some of which should more accurately be described as branches, that the dog has triumphantly carried all the way home from the wood, resolutely refusing to let go.  There's pine cones and smooth pebbles, treasure found on days out which seemed the most beautiful items in the world earlier, but somehow I now don't quite want to come over my threshold, so they languish on the doorstep for months on end.  I can't quite get rid of them either so they exist in the limbo of the storm porch.

Often there are parcels tucked behind all this detritus of daily life, left by lazy delivery drivers who can't be bothered to wait for me to come to the door. The newspaper is shoved annoyingly halfway through the letter box by the monosylabic newspaper boy, inviting the cold wind to come howling through and into our hall.

There's sticky fingerprints at child height, and unpolished silver door furniture - yet another job that never seems to make the priority list. There's the doorbell which hasn't worked for months because I never remember to buy the correct battery to replace the dead one.  Those in the know bang the knocker, and those not privy to this information - the door-to-door salesmen, Jehovahs Witnesses and political canvassers never get answered because I live in blissful ignorance that they were ever there.

But this is the door where I stand, laughing and chatting with friends who gush "I'm not stopping, got loads to do" and then proceed to spend half an hour on my doorstep chewing the fat.  This is the door that gets thrown open wide to family and loved ones, the welcome message on the doormat a true and heartfelt sentiment extended to most.

This is the door that my daughter rushes to when her Daddy gets home from work, hurling herself at him for bear hugs.  Provided there's nothing good on the telly of course.

This is the door that the dog sits behind.  Excitedly welcoming our homecoming as enthusiastically when we've popped to the shops for five minutes, as when we've been out all day, her mouth holding a random shoe and her tail banging the radiator in delight at our return.

This is the door that keeps us safe and sound.  That looks after us.  The door to a house of love and laughter, of arguments and irritations, of mess and too much stuff.  A family.  My family.

What does your front door say about you?