Author and podcaster Elizabeth Oldfield lives in south London in a shared home with her husband Chris, a philosopher, their two children aged seven and nine and another couple, Ramsey and Hatty El-Khazen. They moved in together in December 2020, as the second lockdown was announced. Here, she tells Lucy Denyer what the experience has taught her.

1. Clarity is kindness This is a mantra of our house and came from [the American professor and social worker – Brené Brown – we reference her so much that we actually have a joke icon of her in the house after I started calling us the Order of St Brene. Basically it’s been the realisation that being able to communicate clearly and bravely is absolutely essential.

The things that are unsaid can leave uneasy fudges about what expectations, and anything unsaid comes back to bite you, even if it feels easier in the moment not to have the hard conversation. 2. Society is not set up to allow us to live differently It’s difficult, once you notice the tram tracks that force us into how we live, to get yourself off them.

It took years of pushing through resistance – both our own internal resistance and other people’s, and financial and legal structures – to end up where we are, because society really only supports single people or nuclear families. 3. Friction is normal – you can tolerate more annoyance than you think The modern environment – has basically been set up to reduce friction – to radically shrink any small ann.