HOUSE HUNTER:We do know what we want – a house with quirks where we can exploit our creative sides, writes  DON MORGAN

OVER 100 houses viewed, four offers made, one sale agreed, one ensuing debacle. A lot of wondering, what if. Are we getting any closer, though, or is it a case of writing to Santy? It feels as though we’ve been househunting forever.

We didn’t get further than talking our long shot in Glasthule into reality. We want to maintain the momentum, keep the ball up in the air like an expensive, 35-year game of heads and volleys. We’re intent on making an offer on it.

A lot of our friends and co-conspirators have been asking where exactly the house is, and to all of them, back off!

This dog is moving nowhere from this particularly run-down manger. We’ve been doing our sums, though unfortunately it may be beyond what the bank will give us finance for. We’ll have to wait and see.

Of the could-have-beens, our one failed sale was a blessing in disguise. It’s still a building site, we noticed, with Christmas just an overdraft away. As we talk our options through, the ball stays in motion. Beyond getting the hell off the N7 in the mornings, every viewing sharpens our vision of an ideal home.

Both of us want to exploit our creative sides in a house with quirks. We’ve seen some houses that have certainly sharpened that desire, and people have even offered to show us their homes.

One near Bray, to my eternal regret, I can’t find the e-mail for. It looked like a gem beyond the town, down a mad country lane: the Archers meets Scarlet O’Hara beyond the Sugarloaf.

Despite having looked at estateloads of conventional semi-d’s, neither of us have any emotional connection to them.

Maureen grew up in an old, constantly evolving farmhouse. I grew up in a 1940s bungalow that’s as normal as the Jackson family photo album. There’s no excitement, no desire per se to live in one.

So we went for a scout for period houses that were in our price range. Of the ones we did uncover, two were on the market six months ago, their prices radically lower than then. Clearly people are getting the hint that houses in Ireland shouldn’t be over 500k at this stage of the game, unless they’re clad in gold. Were it not for the horizontal rain, after all, we’d have been bought up by the Yanks and turned into a golf course years ago.

Our continuing uncertainty, and our continuing search is defined by the question of what’s home to us. Maureen’s sense of home is defined by Kildare. She’s bound to the sense of community she enjoyed there as a child. My sense of home is non-existent.

I’m lost somewhere over the North Sea. In the run-up to Christmas, I’ve noticed that my sense of home is in memory: the smell of coffee and pine cones, my dad’s jumper, the Christmas fair in the German school. I’m like a displaced person in my head. Interestingly, at viewings, we’re told the property market is now exclusively homebuyers. Investors have been eliminated.

It’s clearly an emotional transaction then, unlike investing in property, which isn’t, and which had a negative impact on homebuyers, forcing them into a place, whose long term value was dubious.

Was it good business? Yes. Was it . . . good? Not in any social or spiritual sense.

2009’s been full of upheaval, change and brought to light things I find too scary about life to contemplate: the transient nature of existence, mortality, Susan Boyle. We’ve been excited, frightened, bored and frustrated. Now, we’re all of the above and none and more.

After much trial and error, constant frustration, and yes, occasional upset, we know a house will be bought soon.

We need it done. For all the hassle, it’s heartening that homebuying is a trauma marked by its ordinariness. It happens to many. We’ll keep your ears stiff, as Mum would say. And keep going. We’ll keep you posted.