The house with the smelly husband

When you are house-hunting, the silliest things stick in your memory and, even when you've viewed hundreds of properties over the years, as I have, help you remember particular ones. For ever. My friend Jill can never forget a set of estate agent's details in which the only thing they could find to say about the bathroom was that it had an 'ornamental soap dish', whatever that might be.

Yesterday's viewings kicked off with a 1 pm date at a house with tenants who are leaving in a couple of weeks. The front door led straight into a lounge packed with tall, lively young people who were crammed onto two sofas watching a big flat screen TV. They were friendly and sociable but I neverthless felt as if I were intruding on their lives - especially so when an extended Asian family trooped in after me. We were jostling for space in the tiny 12ft x 10 ft rooms, the agent trying to squeeze through the throng to usher people up the steep staircase, or into the garden. The dining room was crammed with computers and a large fridge freezer. I soon saw why. There was no space for said fridge in the kitchen, which was poky beyond belief, space having been sacrificed for the addition of a downstairs cloakroom. But the garden was sweet. The bedrooms were just... bedrooms. Nothing in the house made one jump for joy. But it was chain free so I had to consider it.

Next was a house three doors down, on with another agent who I was meeting later. The very pleasant, friendly owner showed me round. I could see why she, with two teenage children, had outgrown it. The house had a friendly, hippy feel and, although the tiny front room had two feet nipped off it for a corridor, it seemed larger than the previous house. The garden was a bit ramshackle, but there were hens in a coop at the bottom. I wondered if she would be selling those with the house.

Upstairs, there were three bedrooms, accessed by a wiggly corridor. But no bathroom. That was downstairs, through the kitchen. Bad point. Next to it was another door. "Is that a storage cupboard?" I asked hopefully.

"No, it's another loo," I was told. "But why, when there's a bathroom with a loo next door?" I persisted. And that's when she told me that the previous owner was in the throes of divorce when the present owner bought the house seven years ago. When the present vendor had asked the same question, she was informed by the woman that her husband was so smelly that she couldn't bear sharing a toilet with him so she had built him his own separate loo.

Last on the list was a flat. The most glorious, wonderful flat, with a sun-filled lounge, a fabulous kitchen, a glass-walled sunroom off it which overlooked the stairs down to the garden and, my biggest dream, a second bedroom in the attic, spacious and peaceful. It was also very cheap. But... and it's a big but, the road itself was down at heel and dog-beshitten, and the houses adjoining it were tenanted and neglected, with jungles for gardens, full of rusting chairs and old mattresses. It was also quite a hike to the station. If only I could have picked it up and moved it a couple of roads away.

Having seen the light, airy, spacious flat, the houses seemed poky and claustrophobic by comparison. My friend and I then drove to Muswell Hill and I found my spirits lifting in the buzz and glitz of boutiques and restaurants. I had a lemon and honey pancake, quite divine, then we hit the charity shops and I bought a summer frock for £2.50 (fingers crossed we'll get a summer this year) and a cream hooded cardi.

My pal dropped me at Highgate Tube at 4.30. At 6.45 I was still not home. My bus from Uxbridge Tube broke down, the bus behind it had that infuriating, likme-green 'this bus is out of
service' sign on it, so, two miles from home, in a gentle drizzle, I started to plod, feeling my carrier bag and shoulderbag getting heavier by the second. I rang Mr Grumpy with my tale of woe and he saved me the last half mile by coming out to get me. I finally made it back through the door at 7.05, two and a half hours after leaving Highgate. Now you see why I want to move. I can get to Liverpool faster by train than I can from North London to Mr G's tubeless region of Hillingdon.

It wasn't a wasted day, though. I enjoyed myself immensely and my friend and I are still giggling over the house with the smelly husband. But I shan't be buying it.