Spending so much more time at home during lockdown caused many of us to turn to DIY projects to keep our minds occupied and hands busy. Last year, Dick and Angel Strawbridge of Escape to the Chateau recognised people’s desire to renovate and responded with a new TV show to inspire us all.
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I set off at 5am. Not unusual for workaholic me. I have left the collies with Nic, and am driving to Exmoor. A distance of 330 miles. I can feel Gracie’s presence on my back seat, so I’m not alone. She rode pillion for 15 years, as she could never be left on her own: far too chewy. Her pointy-nosed presence is tangible, as though there is a two-bar electric fire in the back. I drove the very same journey, only in reverse, in 2012: five cats in the front, four collies in the back, several sheep and five horses in a box. I’d sold my farm (50 acres! Dear god, I now inhabit a postage stamp) to buy my sister a cottage. I didn’t quite have the £275k asking price but, as luck would have it, I had not long driven through a flood, writing off my BMW, and the insurance money covered the last few grand of the deposit. The Yorkshire Dales was a new start, though I had to rent for a year (£200,000!) as
I wasn’t allowed to have two mortgages just then. It was a gamble that I’d be able to earn enough. One I ultimately lost.