I’ve been a bit quiet on here of late, mainly because we’ve been preoccupied with house hunting.

To say it hasn’t gone well would be an understatement. It doesn’t help that my husband and I are coming at this from completely different angles; I’m trying to tick a million different boxes whilst simultaneously holding out for ‘the feeling’, whereas he’d be happy to live in pretty much anything as long as it had designated parking and a Sky dish…

Here are a few reasons why we’ve failed to find ‘the one’ so far!

– Please don’t follow us hopefully from room to room as we look around your house. It’s really hard to appreciate your ‘spacious ensuite’ when it contains us, the estate agent, your entire family and a cocker spaniel…

– Speaking of furry friends, nothing says ‘buy me’ like stepping into a garden and hearing “probably best to stick to the patio, the dog’s crapped all over the lawn”.

– It’s important to try and look past the contents of a house and imagine your own furniture in there. And also not to spend the entire viewing wondering why somebody would possibly want to sit this close to their oven…

– I’ve managed to crack some estate agent codes for you:

“In need of some modernisation” = shit-tip
“Interior photos available upon request” = secret shit-tip
“Has to be seen to be appreciated!” = SURPRISE!!! (shit-tip)

– On that note, can we scale back the flowery phrases completely and just call a spade a spade?

“Lateral living at its finest!”
It’s a fecking bungalow. Which is fine; lots of people like bungalows. But I can guarantee that not one of those people is currently trawling through rightmove exclaiming “yet another loathsome staircase darling – I just LONG to live laterally!”

“A fabulous designer kitchen which effortlessly flows to the dining room in the guise of a conservatory, providing en vogue living space.”  Right oh….I have questions:

1 – how much effort are people usually putting in to get from their kitchen to their dining room? Are we talking a 5-mile hike, some kind of SAS-level obstacle course??

2 – ‘in the guise of a conservatory’ – sorry, so the dining room is disguised as a conservatory?? Once you’ve moved in, does it whip off the glass panels and a comedy moustache and shout “GOTCHA SUCKERS – no sun-kissed afternoons for you!!”

3 – What the actual f*ck is ‘en vogue’ living?? Is Madonna camped out in the utility room waiting to help you unload the dishwasher??

– And finally, I know that you really, REALLY want to sell us this property, but when you enthusiastically clamber into the bath to show me that the sloping ceiling less than a millimetre above your head in the ‘character’ bathroom “Isn’t even noticeable really!”, I’m mentally making a run for it…

I’ve got a feeling we’ll be staying where we are for now!