The only way to cope with the stress of having a potential buyer look round your house is to be desperate to move to another property. If I hadn’t been really committed to the idea of moving I don’t think I could have summoned up the necessary patience, diplomacy and as it happened, the ability to lie creatively.

Selling one’s house also involves using the services of an estate agency, unless you are lucky enough to sell it yourself. These are usually quite colourful characters that seem to exist in a parallel dimension and when called upon to interact in the real world, things can go astray. So it was that a week ago I was contacted by an estate agent to arrange a “visite” of my house because he had a client who was “chaud”. I duly reminded him that he knew that as my house was let until the end of the week, this posed a real problem. To my amazement his enthusiasm fired by his keen client had me agreeing to see what could be done. I told him to come at 11 a.m to view the outside and the grounds at least and I would meanwhile see if I could get access to the inside of the house. I had almost a week to broach the subject with my tenants who could only be described as adorable.

Although we lived on the same site it was in fact not easy to speak to them. I would leave early for work in the morning and when I returned they were still out enjoying themselves. Two days later our paths crossed. “Is everything still okay? “ I asked. It was well into their second week so we were beyond the washing machine and trip switch demonstration drills. “Oh yes, we are having a really lovely time” they cooed in unison, “and your fig jam is delicious”. “Oh good. Glad you liked it.” I replied, but just at that moment their son arrived to usher them up the steps and I had lost my moment.

On Monday evening things were becoming serious. I really needed to ask them if I could show someone around the house but on the other hand I really did not want to invade their privacy because they were so nice and unassuming. I decided to make some plum jam. My family knows that I always run to the kitchen in times of stress to bake, make wine or jam with whatever I can lay my hands on. Presenting them with more jam would be the ideal solution. I didn’t really intend it to be a bribe.

The following day I lay in wait when I returned from work. As they got out of the car I relieved them of some of the shopping and helped them up the stairs. I proffered my peace offering in the guise of plum jam but before I could formulate my request the charming elderly woman began to tell me how much they loved the house, the garden, the views, the surrounding villages and how lucky I was to have found the property and how much I must love living there. I felt as if I was living a lie. Of course I had loved being here but now the time had come to move on. I looked into the trusting face beaming up at me and could not bring myself to shatter her illusion.

“Um. If it is alright with you could I show somebody into the house tomorrow please..just a little bit, into the front room for example to um look at the electricity? “ It sounded very false to me and I felt utterly ashamed of myself to have brought it up. She looked at her son to see what he thought. He said that it made no difference to them as the chances were that they would be out and that they always left the key behind anyway as they were afraid of losing it. I beat a coward’s retreat wishing them a nice evening.

My husband was not so comprehensive. “Why on earth did you have to say that? If they decide to stay in you’ll have a real problem trying to explain it all”. He smugly started to chant something about weaving tangled webs but I didn’t want to listen. I had some aubergines that needed to be sliced for a new recipe I wanted to try.

By now it was Tuesday evening and I tidied up our living quarters as best as I could in a nervous frenzy. The next morning dawned as a beautiful September day, just right for visiting. My tenants went off on cue so I had time to whip round the garden straightening cushions and checking out the pool. At twenty to eleven the telephone rang. It was the estate agent. He informed me in no uncertain manner that because I hadn’t bothered to confirm the meeting with him he had had no option but to cancel it. At first I was lost for words but soon retorted that there was no error on my part. I remembered the arrangement and it definitely needed no confirmation on my side.

In fact this scenario is one of my bête noires. It has to be because in my generation it wasn’t necessary to check and double check an arrangement. We had no mobile phones so if a friend and I planned to go to the cinema together the date held from one week to the next. We were capable of long term planning. It didn’t need a call every other day to check that we were still alive and hadn’t forgotten the arrangement. Most of all we avoided painfully obvious conversations such as” hello, I’m on the bus” the like of which are aimed to disturb as many fellow passengers as possible.

Returning to the current problem, I stood my ground and the agent began to falter. He offered to see if he could retrieve the situation and asked if I’d be in later. I told him that I had blocked the whole day for him and his client and implied that it would be very much appreciated if he could sort something out. He promised to get back to me as soon as possible. An hour later I thought there had to be a problem so I called him back. He seemed to think it normal that I should be doing the chasing up. It appeared that his hot client was now only lukewarm having seen the property advertised elsewhere with photos which were not to his liking. I refused to take the blame for this as it was obvious to me that the agent’s inflated price to include his fat commission was the deterrent here, not the photos. After a few embarrassed pleasantries he ended the conversation with ”bon continuation”. This always amuses me as a salutation and it was obvious that I would be better off continuing to try to find a buyer myself.