I've had my Edinburgh property on the market for three weeks, and it's aged me 20 years

My flat has been on the market for three weeks, and I’m spent. Done. Exhausted. Unsettled. Puffy. Blobby. Pale. My eyes are bloodshot. My jowls are jowling.

This is partially because, every morning, I have been waking at 5am or 6am. I can’t get a proper night’s sleep because there is too much going on in my life.

As my editor said, it felt like all the tabs in her brain were open when she was selling her house.

Indeed. Mine also feels as if it’s rebooting and simultaneously downloading every past episode of Coronation Street, while the Wi-Fi is on the blink.

I’m so befuddled that I keep making mistakes. For example, I was planning to back up this column with the contents of a press release that I got the other day, which said that moving house is more stressful than divorce or having a baby, but I deleted it by accident.

Yesterday, I was transcribing an interview, and cringed when I heard myself ask the interviewee - a Scotland’s Home of the Year contestant - the same question three times.

I put my leggings on back-to-front when I went to the gym.

I’m distracted, as there’s always cleaning to do, estate agent emails to answer, forms to fill in and a need to doom-scroll the ESPC for local competitors, while the rest of the time is filled with general rumination.

But, also, I have to hold down a full time job.

Anyway, I will not complain too much, as we will soon be crossing the rubicon. Last week, I was ready to give up. We’d had a flurry of a dozen viewings, but follow-up was minimal.

Then, our luck changed. Now, there are four notes of interest, and we’ve gone to a closing date.

I feel like one of those London Marathon runners, all jellified at the finish line.

At least, by the time you read this, unless the whole tenement plunges into a sink hole, we’ll have sold. There will be new owners for our lovely flat, which I’m feeling prematurely homesick about leaving. In fact, since we decluttered, tidied and the sun came out, it’s like seeing a suddenly hot ex, and wondering why you ever dumped them.

Whoever buys the flat will probably be one of last week’s viewers, who were an interesting bunch. My favourite was one excellent woman who lives nearby and who’d read my last column.

She asked if I was Gaby of The Scotsman, who’d written about house viewings. Yes, this is she, I replied. Her family had been in the same boat a year ago, and had found the process similarly stressful.

Embarrassingly, she then saw the Aesop and Laura Thomas Co soaps that, in the article, I’d confessed were for display purposes only and had been refilled with supermarket gunk.

Beamer, as we used to say at school.

She loved the flat, but there wasn’t enough dining space. That seems to be a recurring theme. When we bought our home 12 years ago, people weren’t so obsessed with having an open-plan kitchen the size of a food court. Now, they’re mad for it. Maybe if we’d known, we would’ve knocked through a wall or two.

At my occasional low ebbs, when I didn’t think we’d sell, so many friends recounted their experiences that it’s the people who don’t seem interested who usually are.

I pooh-poohed that idea, but then it happened. Twice. There was a twentysomething duo, who couldn’t seem to exit the flat fast enough. Shortly afterwards, they put in a note of interest and described our home as ‘lovely’.

Also, another seemingly nonplussed couple, who we swear we heard say ‘meh’ at one point, is throwing their hat in the ring.

There were also a few really obviously keen beans. I could feel something clicking into place, as they took the tour. It’s sort of like watching someone fall in love, except slightly less sappy.

“We probably shouldn’t tell you this, but we want it,” said one young woman, who’s moving up from London with her partner, because she prefers Scotland. I felt proud of my home in the general and specific sense

As well as the positive affirmations, there have also been some strange questions that we’ve had to field.

My favourite was when someone asked, “Do you ever get any mice in the garden?” to which my husband replied no, but that we’d once seen a hedgehog.

I get it. This is a big decision, but we are not the wildlife police. We’re not going to provide a head count of spuggies and other small creatures. If mice want to pass through our garden, they have a right to roam. You probably wouldn’t see them anyway, because they like to travel in the moonlight, a la Dick Turpin.

We were also asked if we ever get any condensation in the bathroom.

“Yes, but I just open the window,” was my glib reply.

As far as I know, they have not yet invented a steam-less shower, though maybe we could start bathing in sand like budgies.

Anyway, by the time you read this, I will no longer have to answer any questions. Barring the sinkhole or a sudden loss of interest, we will have sold.

NB. The fridge freezer and washing machine are included. The hedgehog is not.

Read more: “I thought selling my Edinburgh property would be easy, but it’s not”