BEING a journalist I am a nosy person by nature. It's ingrained in my personality and has been highly refined during my training and employment at the Advertiser.

So getting to nose around other people's houses - and doing it with a genuine reason - has been brilliant.

We're in the middle of hunting for a house and I can now understand why they say that moving is the most stressful thing a person can do. We haven't even got to the offer stage yet and I am pretty much ready to pull my hair out.

Going to the estate agents is fine I go in, tell them what you want, get given bits of paper book viewings. Simple - or so I thought. It's when you take the pictures home and start looking at them in more detail that the problem starts.

You begin to really like some of the properties that you have spent hours pondering over, and become convinced that it is going to be "the one".

Then come viewing day - BAM! You're instantly disappointed and resign yourself to the fact that you're never going to find a house that is any good.

In one the kitchen is too small, in another the third bedroom is actually no bigger than a cupboard, while in another, after a shower, you'd be trailing bath water through the kitchen as you made your way to the bedroom to get dressed.

It's a minefield. I have no idea how estate agents can watch eager house-hunters' faces drop every hour of every day.

Of course, there are those who are going to love the house immediately - that hasn't happened for me yet, annoyingly.

However, on the up side, I have had the chance to see how other people live - while pretending that I'm examining the craftsmanship of the built-in wardrobe.

In all honesty I haven't actually paid that much attention to other people's belongings - a lot of the houses have been vacant. But maybe it's a way of furthering my career, by nosing around celebrities' homes under the guise of buying them.

Not that a reporter's wage would stretch to affording a six-bedroom Cotswold mansion. Nosiree.

I've got it I'll become an estate agent. I know people don't like them, but we journalists are only just above them on the popularity stakes. I'll let you know how it goes next week.

Joke of the week: TWO snakes are having a conversation.

The first one asks his companion: "Sidney, are we the type of snakes who wrap ourselves around our prey and squeeze and crush until they're dead? Or are we the type of snake who ambush our prey and bite them and they are poisoned?"

Sidney looks at his friend and says: "Why do you ask?"

The other snake looks worried and replies: "Because I just bit my lip!"

1:39pm Thursday 3rd April 2008

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