Escape To The Country

Rowantree

Do you think these programmes cause a lot of discontent, not to mention a lot of waste? I know of people who have had perfectly good kitchens ripped out after 2 years because they went off them or bought a house and didn't like the newly installed kitchen.

I worked with someone who had a very expensive kitchen fitted complete with range. When I asked if she was enjoying cooking in her new kitchen she said they went out to eat or had takeaways. (They then got flooded, the kitchen was ruined and had to be replaced)

I spent a very happy 12 years in a microscopic cottage in Cornwall. No central heating, lots of black mould where it had been badly modernised and the kitchen was just a glorified landing. BUT the view really was to die for! The properties on the show are always hundreds of thousands more than ours was but very few have a comparable view.

My brother and SIL have a large, hand-painted and beautiful kitchen - I'm very envious! They have TWO ovens and a hob with five rings. I think they use their microwave most of all though: they frequently buy M&S ready meals to reheat, rather than cooking from scratch.

Rosesarered: oh, don't worry: I wouldn't make much doing that around where we live, anyway....

Rowantree you could have a red light sewn on top of your hat?

Musn't dirty the ovens or beautiful hob!

Game rowantree? Do you mean Who Dares Wins?

A friend and I used to do a bit of party catering in our spare time. We were asked to do a party for one of the local GPs. Lovely old farmhouse with a beautifully modernised kitchen with all the appliances you could wish for. After a few minutes sorting our stuff out my friend looked round and said "Of course no one ever cooks in here do they?" I think the microwave was well used though

deedaa - a true farmhouse kitchen was never immaculate with granite worktops and the rest
it had a farmhouse table for preparing everything and eating at
it had an aga or rayburn to heat hot water, cook the meals, keep sickly farm animals warm (lambs and piglets come to mind)
it had muddy wellingtons by the door and outerclothing hanging on hooks
of course modern bits have their place but I do wish kitchens were less about appearance/cost and more about how they fit in with the building and the supposed original lifestyle
but then I am a bit of a throwback with a galley kitchen (everything within reach) and would be forever bumping into the 'island' as I moved round the kitchen
I enjoy ETTC as it is envy television in reverse - I don't envy them their range cooker, granite worktops, island unit one bit !

I wish that we could get over this 'kitchen thing'
When I stopped doing my 'proper job' I started cleaning. This suited me as I love cleaning, and I'm good at it( big head)
They were all big houses. One of them had 6 bedrooms and they only had 2 children!!! The best one with the 'kitchen' thing were bankers and they had 13 EMPTY wall units in their kitchen.

As an aside. The 6 bedroom house had a Hoover system where you plugged the hose into a wall socket and all the dust went to a huge bag in one of the garages. Have any of you got/ seen one. They are wonderful.

Mollie65, that takes me back. My aunt's farmhouse kitchen had a huge table, a rayburn or somesuch (never noticed as a child), a dog in front of the rayburn, a comfy chair for the very old uncle, an old bureau stuffed with papers. The scullery was next door with big sinks for washing up, washing eggs etc. There was a huge covered area in front for dirty boots, wet macs etc.

I remember going into the front parlour only once

Obviously these house viewers have never lived on a working farm. DD1's kitchen on her farm is too small and inconvenient, she dislikes the units (put in by previous owners) and there are nowhere near enough cupboards. She would love a 'farmhouse kitchen'.

I have 2 acquaintances who have 2 kitchens. . The main kitchen in one house is a good schlep from the newly built 'conservatory' - well actually it's a double story thing which is probably bigger than my house and my house isn't exactly small, so they have a kitchen to serve it. In the other house, there is one kitchen next to another, and they are both big kitchens. I have never really found out why but assume the previous owners used caterers and they had their own kitchen so as not to sully the one the owners use. I find it difficult enough cleaning and maintaining one!

Perhaps a previous owner was Jewish, Gally. A well-off orthodox Jewish household will have a milk kitchen and a meat kitchen, each fully equipped and the utensils never being mixed.

The not-so-well-off have separate cupboards for milk and meat utensils. The ungodly don't bother.

Are you the ungodly Elegran?

Used to be Church of Scotland, before that sort of Methodist/Congregational, now probably classified as ungodly.

Daughter-in-law is Orthodox Jewish (separate cupboards variety). When we first used to visit I would stand in the kitchen trying to be helpful, but telling me exactly what to use and where it was took longer than doing it herself, and just got her flustered with mother-in-lawitis. Now I just make sure she knows that I am available and willing and keep out of the way.

I have just realised where these young people may get their vast sums of money from for their homes in the country - they are probably in the financial sector and a year's bonus could cover it quite easily.

margaretm74 when I was a small child we had a holiday with my godmother. We stayed with her father who was a gamekeeper. He had an old oven built into the kitchen fireplace and it was normally full of pheasant or bantam chicks being revived. He had an outhouse that was used for skinning and gutting rabbits, but I remember being fascinated watching him pluck and clean wood pigeons on the kitchen table - my mother had beaten a retreat long before we got to the gutting

I'm sure there will soon be a spin-off. 'Stuck in the country.....GET ME OUTTA HERE!!

Deedaa, I was asked to hold the chickens while their necks were slit when I was about 9, but ran off.

DM said she had never seen anyone pluck a chicken as fast as her MIL, who I never met as she passed away years before I was born.

DD1 refuses to eat her own chickens. Times change!

I am sure there will be, merlotgran, especially when it is wet and muddy and John Lewis, harvey nicks and the coffee shop are 75 miles away

Escape to the country, indeed! The other half really likes it but as soon as I see the titles come up I reach for my big blunderbuss of criticism fully loaded with verbal shrapnel, which I fire off with great pleasure as I don't like the programme. I find it patronising and divisive. This does not go down well with herself and I am usually sent back under the carpet and told to simmer down quietly in the corner. I note, however, that some of these escape programmes are years old so assume they are just used as tv channel padding these days, like so much else.

Like others, I wonder what happens when the country novelty wears off, the chimney smokes, manure spreading starts, the thatch drops off, church bells ring round the clock, the septic-tank overflows, foxy gets the chickens, the lamas escape, coypus invade the pond, and the pigs root up the neighbours garden. And how do they feel in the middle of winter when they're cut off from the rest of the world when phone, internet and satellite tv are down, roads are icy and blocked, family don't visit and they really wish they'd stayed nearer to all the old familiar things and faces back where they came from.

On the other hand I might be forced to agree, if pressed, that an element of jealousy is driving all this, so perhaps I'll just shut up and crawl back under the carpet!

You forgot the cockerel crowing at dawn papaoscar
And the right of way through your back garden

Spoken like a man Papaoscar [well, you would, wouldn't you?]My DH does exactly the same as you. I reckon men have to shoot it down in flames to stop us women from pointing at the new kitchen/bathroom etc and saying 'I want that one!'

BTW some of the programmes are old but some are up to date.

I did indeed, M74, not to mention the hunt trampling all over the lawns, herons pinching the fish, drunken carol-singers demanding mince pies at Easter, flat-capped fools in wax-jackets and green wellies looking for Jermima's lost pony, fly-campers in the spinney and the threat of a rave in the paddock next week. Escape...they'll need one!