Week 150- scratch cards, cruises and nicking someone's fruit...

In a parallel universe we live in a five-bedroom house with a massive garden and a huge open fire. All surfaces are dust-repellent, there are obscene amounts of storage, so I never tread on a rogue bit of Duplo again, and the high-ceilinged walls are painted throughout in different shades of Farrow and Ball.

As we are currently house-hunting, the reality of our budget in this universe is starting to sink in.

The thing is, something’s always got to give.

If you want to live in town, you have to give up the idea of a garden in favour of a ‘patio’, which is about four paving slabs overlooked by neighbours on all sides.

Alternatively you can live further out of town and get a bigger place, but have to accept a potential life of loneliness as not even your best mates will take the three bus journeys to come and see you.

I spotted the most amazing house that was selling for the best part of three-quarters of a million pounds and I started daydreaming about what it would be like to live there.

The dinner parties we’d have round the twenty seater oak table; the amazing meals I’d cook from scratch for the children on the Arga; how, as a family, we’d learn to identify the different birdsongs in our football pitch-sized garden, just for a laugh.

In fact, not only would I live in a huge house, I would instantly become a more wholesome, more crafty person who was also so hugely nice that you couldn’t help but be pleased for me and my humongous abode.

I got so carried away with the idea that I started buying scratch  cards, convinced that I was just a quid away from the £100,000 that would enable us to buy it and have some spare change for a cruise while the removal men unpacked.

Until I realised I’d missed a zero off my calculations and I’d need to win at least seven times, which seemed a little less realistic.

One of the best bits about house-hunting is looking round houses you’d never normally get invited into. It’s like a nosy persons dream. You get a snapshot into people’s lives and try to see if you could somehow adapt your life into their space.

But by far the best person to take to viewing is a two-year-old.

If you want an honest opinion about a place, just ask them. They remember the things you don’t. The homes with the great places to hide. The ones that smell weird. The houses that have all the children’s toys out, which, as exciting as it is for a child, is a giveaway that the parents have run out of storage.

It’s also worth remembering you can’t take your eyes off a small person for a minute though.

My daughter has nearly made off with another child’s teddy, has snuck off to use the loo during a viewing and has even started to eat fruit from someone’s fruit bowl.

Never mind. I might be sitting off in my five-bed house in a parallel universe, but I don’t imagine my parallel kids are nearly as much fun.