Escape To The Country

Deedaa Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman in matching pointless leotards, perhaps? Jules in a tent? I'll go for the Holiday Inn!

When did 'loved ones' become the phrase used for 'their families'? If you notice [and I do] it's now used all the time for everything; soldiers go home to 'their loved ones' instead of their families. It sounds very quaint to me.

Watched another ETTC today , they were shown 2 lovely cottages in Somerset and opted for an old chapel instead , with NO garden/land. They had said at the outset they wanted land[for a Shetland pony of course!]
I was shouting 'buy the second house' at them but they chose to ignore me.

papaoscar Thankyou for planting the vision of Alexander and Richard in leotards in my head! I'm just off for a cold shower and a strong drink

Do some of these people have any idea what unpleasant little animals shetland ponies can be roses ? They aren't over sized dogs and they have quite big teeth!

Yes Deedaa I don't like them at all [or the Dartmoor, or the Exmoor ponies]ever since as a child, one ate my kite!
We now have a new game, when watching, who will first say 'the hub of the home' 'the wow factor' or 'oh, there's an AGA!' If the people don't want a thatch roof, Jules will be sure to show them one 'to shake their preconceptions up a bit' [LOOK! They don't want one, alright?!]
If they say they want to be in a village, and walk to the pub, they show a house 2 miles from the village. No wonder nobody ever buys a house on that show [or it must be very rare.]

I watched Kirstie Allsopp's programme on Channel 4 tonight which is just a mixture of Escape to The Country and Location, Location, Location. The family bought a large house to accommodate themselves, MIL, three kids and FOUR dogs. It was right beside a busy commuter route, the traffic noise was awful and downright dangerous for the kids and dogs.

Never mind, Kirstie was jumping for joy!!

When I'm channel hopping I can't resist all those location programmes or Grand Designs [except I always fall asleep before the end and miss the finished house]. Last night a heavily pregnant woman was living in a caravan; during the course of the programme she gave birth and was still living in the caravan when I nodded off. In another programme the wife had her second child and then during the course of the programme had another one .

Tegan have you ever seen any of the couples with babies or small children on Grand Designs ever produce a house suitable for said offspring? They always seem to have dodgy staircases, flimsy mezzanines, stone floors, lots of glass and, of course, lots of priceless artifacts carefully strewn around and waiting to be broken.

My biggest horror are staircases that children can climb over . And there's never anything like a stairgate. I can't bear to think about mezzanines [my imagination goes into overdrive]...

Interesting that today's episode featured a property in Dorset in the row of identical thatched cottages that were used in 'The Great British Design Challenge'. I couldn't wait to see if the sitting room was one that was ruined designed but no, it was charming and tasteful!!

Oh no; I missed that one. It might have set me off wanting to redecorate the whole house again [I've got over it now; just]. I'm finding it therapeutic to watch house design/sale etc programmes where the properties are a bit on the tacky side [60 minute makeover etc]; that way I look at my house and think 'not so bad after all'.

I love all these programmes. There was one, I think it was ETTC but it might have been Location, where the couple had contacted the seller and put in an offer before the crew came back to ask them what they thought! Usually they seem to have no intention of buying anything. I sometimes wonder if the presenters, particularly on HUTH have ever lived in a small house with children. No, no, don't knock down the wall between the loo and the bathroom for the sake of 'space' and 'light'. Don't make the entire ground floor open plan! Anyone remember Sarah Beeny's programme? The 'developers' always completely ignored her advice and made a huge profit because of the housing bubble. And I love the expression on the faces of the developers on HUTH as they explain they have already let 'the property' for more than the estate agent suggests.

My favourite HUTH hammer was the house in Cornwall near St Ives I think, where the developer gave up his plan to massively extend the house because he couldn't bring himself to cut down the beautiful apple tree in the garden. He must have lost thousands, but it was a lovely tree!

A lot of the people on these programmes have contacted the tv programme because they are incapable of making a decision or or are unclear about what they want. This is what makes a good programme. Some just have unrealistic ideas about what they can get for their money or demand features that very few properties have.

I can remember one couple wanted a house and business premises for some kind of light engineering business. They were offered a house which they loved and a brand new purpose built industrial unit next door, which they could rent - and they turned it down as they wanted to own both premises on the same site, even though such properties were almost non-existent in the area they wanted to live in. In the revisited programme a year later, they were in a house with rented business premises half a mile away. The penny had finally dropped, you cannot buy what doesn't exist.

The big money, or should I say the budget money, nowadays seem to to be reruns of these programmes with 'revisited' on the end of the programme name. It is interesting to see how many of the ETTC people really have settled down in their rural idyll and made it their lives, changing jobs, starting local businesses, working from home etc.

It certainly would! Also those who have escaped to the country, found it wanting, and returned to the town/city/suburbs.

I should certainly like to see how some of them have settled down. Especially the ones buying the big houses and planning the fabulous parties for their friends (all cooked in the massive kitchen while hubby mows the two acre paddock with his ride on mower ) From my (very happy) experience of living in the country I can't see many of them fitting in with the locals. A boundless capacity for steering sheep or cattle back into fields, plucking chickens and providing lifts at a moments notice are the main requirements for real country living, plus an in depth understanding of the many uses of binder twine.