Sitting at a lonely desk and writing all day can be a desperately dreary business. It’s not surprising, then, that the life of most professional writers, myself included, is almost entirely driven by the search for new and exciting ways to avoid it.

There was a time, for example (before I took up running, new-age therapies and going to the pub on my own) when I was on first-name terms with almost every estate agent in Greater London.

Or so it seemed. Over a period of about six months, I must have seen 50 or 60 houses, none of which the husband and I could have ever hoped to afford. That wasn’t the point. It was nice to get a glimpse into how the other half lived. And it was such a treat to have someone to chat to.

I remember looking at a palace in north London once. It had an indoor “plunge pool” and a “media room” with specially padded walls. Gosh, it was lovely. I made the mistake, lulled by those padded walls, of asking the agent whether the “vendor” would be likely to take an offer on the asking price . . . I think I must have giggled, because after that, everything changed. She looked quite annoyed, suddenly, and said: “Well, I don’t imagine he’s running a charity.” Then she more or less threw me out of the house. Silly old bag.

Anyway, I didn’t go back to her. Or she didn’t come back to me, to be more accurate. Then, gradually, nor did any of the other estate agents. I was officially designated what I think, in estate agent’s parlance, is known as a Fwot – a f***ing waste of time.

There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then. Attitudes change. People discover long-distance running and so on. Nowadays, any kind of estate agent-related activity tends to make me queasy with bitterness and utter boredom. Which wouldn’t matter, except that, ever since I started burbling about moves to Manchester, family pressure to make permanent roots here in London has become more or less intolerable.

So, I’m back, using my married name this time. Not that I probably need to, actually, the current climate being what it is, ha ha ha. I expect even the Fwots get their calls returned promptly these days.

To make the process more bearable, I’ve developed a new game. I’ve played it only once, because it involves a certain amount of small talk (or “foreplay”), which can be dispiriting. It’s called Kicking Them When They’re Down, and there are various stages to it, as there should be in all games of any subtlety, but the basic rules are simple.

What you do is ring up an estate agent – preferably one who did the same to you back in the summer, when the climate out there was a bit different – and you ask, in a very kind voice: “How are you?”

When I played, the response to the above opening salvo (or “foreplay”) was quite disappointing. He simply said he was “very well”, in quite a businesslike way. I replied “Good, good” (“further foreplay”), even though we both knew he was lying.

There followed quite a boring conversation about houses, the details of which I won’t bother you with. I told him, again, what we were looking for (stage two: “sharing your fantasies”) and named the amount we were willing to spend in order to acquire it. He sounded disappointed and started using annoying words like “realistic” and “compromises”. At which point, of course, the foreplay stages were over. Both participants were stripped bare and the game could begin in earnest.

“Anyway, how’s business?” I said. “Bit quiet at the moment?”

And that’s it. Then you let them answer. To win, you have to listen to the entire lying spiel without giggling. I must admit, I lost that particular round, but that doesn’t matter. I can see hours of new and exciting fun ahead.

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