We accept the cash buyers, but make it clear we expect a quick sale and no last minute attempts to renegotiate what is already a very good price. It is agreed we will put down a cash deposit on the house we want and they will follow suit by putting up the same amount on ours. The agent is nervous for all our sakes, but in fact it is a good move crystallising the commitment needed to really push the sale forward.

And now of course the hard work really begins: solicitors, surveyors, mortgage brokers - a whole cast of people who (no offence intended) it is much nicer to live without. Removal companies are summoned to give quotes and I very nearly throw in the towel there and then. Pack!! All this!?! When I tell one friend the good news that we have sold, she e-mails back with the message, “I feel faint for you”. Well, I am damn close to having an attack of the vapours myself. It is bad enough trying to work out where all the furniture will go, never mind the Husband's unwieldy collection of Penguin paperbacks, but the items that really make me want to lie down for three months in a darkened room are the small ones - the paper clips I will have to box away or the cotton wool balls that will eventually need sorting.

To cap it all, we are all working to a ridiculously short deadline because our sellers need to relocate in time for the new school term. In a concerted effort to help them out, our buyers and ourselves pull out all stops to complete within five weeks. There is a nail biting six days planned between exchange and completion. When the solicitor rings to say exchange has actually happened, I don't know whether to weep with relief or panic. In that immortal phrase, the lady's not for turning.