First-time buyer in London

Estate agent’s blurb: ‘Property has its own door’. Now there’s a relief. What next – ‘delighted to say property has its own toilet’, ‘proud to present this car parking space that could be converted into a three bed if you are all really, really good friends’?

I desperately want a little pad to call my own, somewhere I can feel settled, paint the walls, dig in a garden (or window-box – let’s be realistic), put up shelves, have a desk (oh the dream), and just potter about surrounded by everything that makes me ‘me’. So I have been saving desperately and foregoing treats for what seems like years. I now think I may be able to buy a potting shed. If I’m lucky.

I find myself clicking through property websites, and think that copywriters for estate agents have a really hard job. All the cheery exclamation marks in the world cannot hide the fact the property they are trying to market is a dump. ‘Look at the wondrous views,' they trill bravely as they try to flog a high-rise flat. ‘Close to all transport amenities,' they say about properties choking in fumes alongside the busy North Circular ring-road.

And why do they all ‘boast’ or are ‘proud’ to present properties? Why just settle on those two adjectives – they could brag, declare, even swank a little (we are swanking with delight to tell you about this flat). Actually I don’t know if I want to think about estate agents swanking with delight. Do you?

Sometimes I get bored with the sort of results my price range throws up in the London areas that I am looking in, and extend the search to Cornwall. I then look longingly at the sort of place I could get if I wasn’t attached by a monetary umbilical cord to a job in London, and sigh. Of course, it is thanks to the fact I am so attached that allows me to even dream of owning my own place. I’m in a weird catch-22 when all I really want to do is live like an artist and skip around with a leaf.

Do you think we ever grow up and become the people we want to be, or do you think people settle for less than ideal? Gosh that is philosophical for a Friday. Let’s go back to talking about swanking.