Now that our TV programme has screened, a few people have asked us about it - what was it like filming? How long did we spend in each place? Did we buy any of the properties we were shown? What's Jasmin really like? And so on.

The story is that Liz and I were on board Liberty towards the end of 2013, realising that our dream of being in the south of France and cruising through the winter in some degree of warmth was a fallacy. We'd learned from others with more experience than us that parts of the canal system closed over winter for maintenance, and that the weather wasn't much warmer than the rest of France. In fact, the marina we were in Beaucaire had, three years previously, frozen over!

So, if we were to spend another year or more on the boat, we realised it might be better to have somewhere else to go, and so we began thinking about buying a property. I was keen to find something in a warmer climate - Tenerife appealed due to its year-round sun - while Liz being the more pragmatic of us thought Liverpool (where we have friends) would be better, and would perhaps offer employment opportunities that Spain wouldn't.

On a whim, I wrote off to the A Place in the Sun - Home or Away producers and told them our dilemma. They came back early in January 2014, keen to follow up, and after a few weeks to-ing and fro-ing with paperwork and a 'screen test' we were confirmed for the programme.

They first sent out a young production assistant, Sarah, who arrived one afternoon with a camera and tripod, and spent a couple of hours shooting us - on the boat, tootling down the marina, berthing, sitting on deck drinking wine (surprise!), and doing a brief interview.

Then, in March 2014, we were flown to Liverpool and put up in a hotel. That evening we met the director Philippa, and the crew, and presenter Jasmin for drinks and pre-shoot chat. We'd be shooting over the following two days - and where it looks on the programme like they whizz you from property to property in a short space of time, in fact it's a lot less hectic.

Next morning we started with the opening shots which were done at the waterfront, and later were shown our first property, an apartment in a tower block. They do go to some lengths to capture your first impressions, and we got used to waiting on the street or in corridors while Jon the cameraman (Jasmin's husband) shot various bits inside and set up ready for us to walk through the door. So when you see couples led into a property for the first time, it really is the first time!

Liz and I had already agreed that we would NOT say 'Wow!' the moment we walked into any of the properties, even if it blew us away, because it's what everyone says. The other thing to avoid was saying 'bathroom' when looking into the bathroom, or 'kitchen' when viewing that. Given that TV is a visual medium there's no point in stating the bleeding obvious.

The three properties in Liverpool were all nicely central and basically were for sale for the same price, but they varied widely in their appeal. Liz and I scored each on a chart so we'd know we were comparing against the same criteria. Jasmin liked the chart and included it in the programme, but there was a lot of other stuff that wasn't used, which was disappointing.

For example, I'd asked Jasmin on camera why apartments were called 'apart'ments when they were joined onto others. If anything, I said, they should be called 'togetherments.' She liked this and it became a running gag through all our Liverpool shooting, yet it wasn't used at all.

Also, there were some negatives we highlighted which weren't used, such as the possibility that the wasteland in front of the tower block might be built on, thereby obscuring our views, or that the alleyway that led to the listed building apartment had bars over all the windows at street level and a view from the apartment of roofs across the alley covered in coils of barbed wire. It was intimidating and ugly, but no mention was made of it, or the fact that we'd noted that the apartment still had the feel of a commercial office (and, we suspect, that's exactly what it was but was being marketed for the first time as residential).

However, having worked in television production myself, I do understand the need for editing, and that the ratio of shooting to finished production is usually about 4:1, so I'm not too concerned.

Except. Except that in the second half of the programme, which featured three apartments in Tenerife, they missed out some crucial information that would have explained why we didn't choose to buy what appeared to be our ideal winter retreat.

Of the three Tenerife properties there was one in a small apartment block on a quaint side street. It had two bedrooms, an internal access garage, and two terraces - one upstairs, and a lovely garden terrace below. It faced the sunny south and had a sweeping view of the Atlantic. What's not to like?

What they didn't show was us expressing concern about the motorway that was being built below the apartment - quite distant but still near enough that we could hear the reversing beeps of the bulldozers and trucks. And, at the bottom of the garden terrace was a septic tank, a smelly septic tank.

But there was something else, and perhaps more major; the Spanish government has recently introduced new legislation prohibiting holiday lets in Tenerife of less than three months' duration, which effectively has destroyed the apartment holiday industry.

They've done this to protect (they claim) the local hotels, and have even employed undercover inspectors to check that apartments aren't being let for just a week or two. These inspectors apparently knock on doors and say they're doing a tourism survey, which is underhand and sneaky. And costly for those caught; we heard of one property owner who was fined 15,000 Euros!

So, although this legislation is being challenged in court, it frightened us off buying in Tenerife, even if we'd compromised on the motorway and septic tank issues. We'd even had some ideas for potential work we could have done in Tenerife. But none of that came out in the story, and some viewers must be wondering why on earth we'd choose Liverpool over sunny Spain. Well now you know.

Anyway, overall we enjoyed the experience, and it did prove to be very worthwhile and useful, not just a free holiday. It convinced us that we did want an apartment in Liverpool near the water, even though none of those we were shown appealed fully. Later in the year Liz spent nine days viewing a whole lot more apartments and found the one in which we're now living. (We told the programme producers and thought they were going to say as much in a voice-over on the credits, but seemingly not.)

Am I sad we didn't find somewhere in Tenerife? Not really. Having left New Zealand and its earthquakes, Liz reminded me about my fear of seismic shakes and said, 'Why would you want to then go and live on the slopes of a volcano that could erupt any day?'

Good point.