My space: Rachel Johnson, novelist I live in a Victorian, stucco-fronted house in Notting Hill. In other words, I'm living the dream. I've been here since 1979. The area used to be full of artists, poets and writers, but now it is mainly media moguls and bankers. Bernardo Bertolucci, the film director, used to live next door, but he sold the house to a Chinese hedge fund manager. We are one of the last normal families in Notting Hill, but I'm not going anywhere. The Boris documentary shows how often we moved house as children, and that's why I like to put down roots. My house reflects the old Notting Hill. It's a bit of a tip. If you want to get the look, go down to the Admiral Vernon market on Portobello Road and buy the lot. The sitting room is rather small. It is the only entertaining space on the ground floor, and gets very crowded. Josh Berger, the head of Warner Bros, came to dinner last week and an antique leather chair collapsed under him. All four legs splayed and he crashed to the floor. It was really quite embarrassing. Portrait of Stanley Johnson My mother, Charlotte, is a painter, and she painted my father in the Sixties. It's brilliant because it's exactly like him, even though it's green and orange. They divorced when I was 14 so it's nice to have the memory Green plastic hare This was based on a famous etching by Albrecht Dürer. It reminds me of the interesting year I spent in Germany, researching my novel. You can ruin a novel with one inaccurate detail - it makes the reader want to hurl the book across the room. That's why I'm determined to get everything right Ceramic of Napoleonic soldier This used to belong to my grandmother, with whom I had a very close relationship. She was half Jewish, and spent a few tricky years in Germany in the Thirties. She was one of those highly intelligent people who simply can't be shocked. She was always amused by something Cobnut tin This represents my very happy two-and-a-half years editing The Lady. When I arrived, I found a whole folder of unused nature articles about dormice, cucumbers and blackberries. There were three about cobnuts alone, so we started to refer to them all as "cobnuts" Winter Games," by Rachel Johnson, is out in paperback now (£7.99; Penguin)