Selling your house, it is said, comes just behind death and divorce as one of life's most stressful experiences.

Wrong. Selling your mother's house - and her moving in with you - comes just behind the two big Ds, and from what I know now, possibly ahead.

We, The Mother and I, put her house on the market this summer. The Mother did all the things I'd advised her to do after I'd read the property pages in various newspapers and magazines.

There was, for instance, the welcoming aroma of fresh coffee and newly baked bread to greet every viewer.

Now don't imagine The Mother and I had suddenly become domesticated - we could manage the coffee but the local baker provided the bread.

The only fly in the ointment, or should I say dog in the manger, was The Mother's pet. Pets, particularly dogs with gruff barks and a tendency to wind, should not be seen, heard - or smelt.

Consequently the dog, and its half-chewed bones, were hidden away at my house.

Over the next couple of weeks a steady procession of potential buyers arrived to view - a few came by themselves, the majority in twos and threes, though one couple brought their parents.

Some came with their children, others brought their dogs - one lot brought both and seemed to be having such a good time in the garden that we half expected them to produce a picnic hamper and continue their revelries under the washing line.

But really, we had no cause for complaint, especially when friends told us what had happened to them when they had been selling their home a couple of years ago.

One couple had arrived to view the house in the evening and it was obvious the husband had been drinking. Bleary-eyed and unsteady, he asked if he could use the lavatory.

When he hadn't emerged after 20 minutes, they knocked on the bathroom door but the man had locked it and, worryingly, could be heard groaning on the other side.

My friend's husband had to break down the door and discovered the man, trousers around his ankles, slumped against the wash basin. Evidently he had slipped on a bath mat and knocked his head against the side of the loo.

Fortunately, our viewers were a well-behaved lot, quite tame in comparison, though The Mother was almost spitting with rage when she overheard one woman tell her husband: "You know this house could look really nice if it was totally redecorated . . . "

Finally, we had serious buyers - serious in the sense that they hadn't come round to get out of the rain or to criticise the wallpaper.

No, they liked the house, loved the house, and before you could say "fixtures and fittings", a Sold sign had been slapped across the For Sale sign by the front gate.

I went away to clear a space in my house for The Mother's impending arrival while she rounded up her personal belongings and did some impressive culling.

Eventually all she had left was a bed, dressing table, a dining table, a couple of chairs and a settee.

Then last week, the sale fell through. The Mother's house now looks . . . well, there's only one word for it, empty.

"Nonsense!" said the ever-optimistic agent. "Spacious, that's more like it."