This location also satisfied one other essential Dream Life criteria: at a half hour drive from Nottingham, it was close enough to pop home for a cup of tea, but deep enough into the countryside that there was no chance of Mum ever finding me.

I took one last look at the kitchen, briefly imagining my similarly imaginary friends sitting round the table sharing lovingly prepared dinners, before following the estate agent upstairs to admire the second bedroom’s buttercup-yellow walls and pale grey floorboards. This would be a perfect home office. There would also be room to squeeze a sofa bed in here, given that having my as-yet-imaginary friends to stay was another item on the Dream List.

Before entering the main bedroom, the estate agent paused, assuming his best salesman smile. ‘Now, just to warn you, this is the one room that the owners hadn’t got around to yet. However, I think the rest of the house demonstrates the incredible potential. It also gives you a chance to style the room to your own taste, of course, if you decide to redecorate.’

If I decide to redecorate?

The bedroom was covered in peeling, mildewed wallpaper. The ratty rose-pink carpet was dotted with various unidentified stains. There was a cracked fireplace, one grubby door half-hanging off the fitted wardrobe and a distinct whiff of dead something.

‘It’s perfect,’ I said, unable to keep up the playing-it-cool act.

‘It is?’ The estate agent’s professional façade vanished behind raised eyebrows.

Buying a house to do up was item three on the Dream List, but now that I was tackling the list by myself, transforming only one dilapidated room was a much more doable challenge.

‘Well, if you like the room, you’ll love this.’ He gestured over to the large window. ‘I’ll be downstairs if you have any questions.’

Moving across, I gripped my hands together and breathed a sigh of happiness. Out of all the reasons for buying this house, this had to be top. The main bedroom looked out onto the back garden. All three gardens in the row were separated by a line of pretty flowers rather than a fence or a hedge, creating the effect of a large communal space. With it being so easy to see into (as well as step into) each neighbour’s plot, they must surely be friendly, neighbourly people?

Even better, at the end of the garden was a hedge, and in the middle section of the hedge was a gate. And on the other side of the gate was miles of nobody and nothing but the trees, birds, deer and whatever else happened to live in this offshoot of Sherwood Forest.

End Cottage sat right on the border of Bigley Forest Park, consisting of over a thousand acres of woodland footpaths and bike trails. I gazed at the sunlight dancing off the treetops, stretching out into the distance, and I resolved to explore them all.