Sorry to harp on about moving house yet again, but the experience was not only, as people say, one of the most stressful in life - it almost finished me off.

Although planned in advance, the whole process turned into a nightmare.

What is, I believe, commonly known as exchange of contracts and completion turned into a protracted exercise riddled with stalemates and gridlocks.

It was as if we were involved in a deal to buy an Iraqi oil field not a 1930s semi.

There we sat, in our old house, the removals van ready with the first load (two lovely lads - good-looking too), waiting for a phone call giving us the go-ahead to get the keys.

We waited, and waited, and waited...

Despite concerted efforts by our solicitor, our building society failed to release the funds to send to the sellers' solicitor in good time to allow for a smooth removal to go ahead.

Having been ready to set off at lunchtime, we were still waiting at 3.30pm, and the buyer of our house was hovering, hoping to move in.

We decided to take a chance and unload the van at the new house, leaving the contents on the drive.

We finally got the keys at 4pm.

Unfortunately, the removals firm had to rush off to another job, which went on well into the night.

They promised to come back, and did - at 12.30am. Two loads later (I don't know how they did it after working flat out all day), we finished. It was light, birds were singing, and the milkman was doing his rounds.

With hydraulic lifts going up and down all night it wasn't the best introduction to a new neighbourhood, but thankfully the neighbours were extremely understanding.

I slept throughout the entire next day. My husband battled on in Dawn Of The Dead fashion, before collapsing and nodding off among a sea of boxes.

Thank heaven the children were with my parents - who were a tower of strength helping us to sort out the mess the next day.

The scary thing is, such traumatic moving stories are common.

Friends and colleagues seem to all have suffered similar experiences.

One told how she and her husband sat in a car park for hours with their cat baskets while waiting for a set of keys, and many have found themselves sitting on doorsteps for hours.

While I realise that all things in life are prone to glitches, what I can't get my head around is that, in these hi-tech days when we have instant access and 24-hour service, and when global communication takes place in the blink of an eye, transactions between financial institutions might as well be made by carrier pigeon.

Still, all that is in the past now.

The new house is a tip but I can look out on our newly acquired garden, send the children to the downstairs loo (a godsend) and wake up to birdsong as opposed to rowdy students coming home from clubs.

It was worth it.

Updated: 08:56 Tuesday, May 25, 2004