From the Front Line

The most common thing that proud homeowners say to the judges as we meet them before being shown around their houses is: "You must really love your job - we're so jealous!"

Sometimes, it's easy to be quite dismissive. A week or so on the road away from home, bedding down in some of Britain's more startling hotels, 5am starts to pick up flights and hours upon interminable hours stuck on motorways - none of it sounds like the stuff of dreams. Take last night, for instance. An early-hours bathroom call in a slightly cramped bedroom resulted in your judge tripped up over the bed and falling, mouth first, into the wooden footboard. No-one heard the dazed groans from room 5.

So it's pretty easy to be grumpy about it, but the truth is - and it sounds like an easy platitude but it's true - is that seeing every home and meeting every self-builder or renovator owner really is an honour. There's always something surprising, something special, something inspiring about every single house, and the owners might be slightly frayed by the experience but they all agree the same thing: creating an individual home simply can't be bettered and they loved almost every minute of it.

It's Friday early evening and your judge has just returned from three days in which we have covered most of Britain. Twice. We started in Bristol, flew down (metaphorically) to Falmouth, and then made our way via North Cornwall to the River Exe. Then we flew (literally) to the Highlands before winding our way down to the Blackpool area via Glasgow and back home with a few stops along the way.

We've seen some amazing houses. Of course, judging can be a very personal process - in the simplest terms it's: Would I like to live here? But in reality it's much more complex, taking into account design, the needs of the owners, and so on. Every owner we have met has told an inspiring tale - one we hope to tell you through this site and in the pages of the magazine in the coming months - and, tonight, tired and a little bit grumpy, it's important to remember that seeing the best homes in Britain really can be a really good job.

Keep checking back for updates and live feeds from next week's final visits.