Tat London Journal

I began this journey thinking it would be quite a charming little feature, 'oh look at these lovely shops you could buy and open a gallery'. This I fear I was at best naïve and at worst patronising.

Gang, I have to say this research was quite overwhelming. I honestly feel I have looked at every house currently on the market. There are rich pickings and I hope our thirty properties with potential will reflect that. As ever we have illustrated the rather more bombastic propositions on the market; what is life without seeing these fabulous relics of architecture and giving ourselves a moment to appreciate them while also having the brief fantasy of revitalising them. This a

London's property market is, at present, a study in contradictions. Across much of the city, sellers are holding their nerve, waiting, watching, reluctant to commit, and the result is a thinning of supply that makes the search for something genuinely considered, something specific, considerably harder than it ought to be. If you know what you want, the market is not always obliging.

I realise I give this explanation each month, but it feels important to clarify what exactly we are doing here, lest you mistake this for sensible property journalism. We are combing the internet for houses that make us want to abandon our lives with minimal admin. Houses that suggest, however falsely, that one could simply arrive with a Labrador, two decent lamps and a crate of wine, and begin a better existence by Thursday.

Estate agents’ emails are the building blocks of the lists you receive once a month. One thing that throws a property directly into the bin, however, is the word “refurbished”. Enter a thoughtless side return, a marble-encrusted kitchen, hideous spotlights dotted about with the ease of a hole punch. In one slender room I can spot twelve.

I sadly cannot claim one drop of Irish blood in my veins. It is of great sadness to me that my lineage basically sits between the north of England and Worcestershire; there is some Scots which of course I am very proud of, but I would love to ring the bell about Irish lineage and not least for the passport. You too might be like me, a person who pines for the shores of Ireland, we spent much of our time there when we were younger and the Irish kindly put up with us. I have of

There is much hand-wringing about the market, and all concerns are understandable in the current climate. But if we put our blinkers on and remind ourselves that England is a glorious place to live, it's no wonder there remains real strength in both buying and selling. Yes, people aren't going berserk offering thousands over the asking, but sensibly priced homes are moving and there is confident steady momentum.

Usually it's Properties with Potential that has my heart, such a meaty subject to get one's teeth into. That said, this month I feel quite warm and bubbly about everything we've found, and I'll confess the two , Dream Houses and Properties with Potential, sections have rather mashed into one in my affections. Undone houses are my favourite things in the world, so to me they are pretty much all dream houses anyway.

Last month we launched this feature, Houses for a Commune. When I put it out on Instagram, the response was riotous, so many of you feeling exactly the same way, wanting to start your own village. Many said it was their retirement plan, though I'm not sure we should wait that long. I'll come to that.