Which is why, a few weeks before Christmas, while the rest of the world is shopping for gifts and decorations, I’m shopping for a new place to call home.

‘I know on your search criteria you said you’re looking for a flat, preferably something that doesn’t need any work doing, but I thought I’d throw in a bit of a wild card for the final property.’

It’s late afternoon and this is my last viewing before I travel back to London. It’s been a long day. I caught the express train from King’s Cross station at first light, changing at Leeds onto the local railway line, which took me on a slow but breathtaking journey through a dramatic landscape, before finally pulling into the small windswept station on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.

There I was met by Mr Hardcastle, an estate agent who, until today, I’ve only corresponded with by email, after he replied to my enquiry about properties for sale in the area. Ruddy-faced and larger than life in his waxed jacket with corduroy collar, he’s nothing like his slick-suited counterparts in London. Cheerfully squeezing the life out of my fingers as he shook my hand, he ushered me into the passenger seat of his old RAV4 and drove me deep into the Dales, past fields full of cows and sheep, showing me everything on the market while providing a chirpy commentary on the weather, in an accent that is pure Pennines.

‘They’ve given rain . . . By, it’s a bit nippy . . . You’re lucky, yesterday it was fair tipping it down . . . There’s talk of snow on the tops . . . Looks like it’s clearing, I can see a patch of blue . . . With any luck, weekend should be grand after all . . .’

Considering it’s the beginning of December, his optimism in the weather is remarkable. As is his ability to see anything positive in this three-hundred-year-old stone cottage, originally built for farmworkers in the small but beautifully picturesque village of Nettlewick. With its dark, poky rooms, rotten windows and nicotine-stained walls, it’s old and tired and in desperate need of a makeover.

I know the feeling.

‘It’s got a certain charm, don’t you think?’

‘I’m not sure I’d call damp charming.’ I point to some scary-looking mushroom growing out of the wall. ‘Or woodworm.’ I peer more closely at the suspicious-looking pinprick holes in one of the large beams running across the ceiling.

‘The vendor’s very open to offers,’ he continues brightly, rocking on his heels. ‘And there’s a lovely westerly view from the back garden. There are a few houses, but mostly you can see straight across the Dales.’

‘What’s the view from the front?’ Walking across to the sash window, I pull back the greying, stained net curtain. ‘Oh – a graveyard.’

‘At least it’ll be dead quiet.’ He chuckles at his own joke.

And now I’m thinking dead people. I’m thinking Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video.