The French Chateau Escape

Click: buy… a French chateau. Condition: ‘may require improvement’…

It seemed like a good idea. Selling everything we own. Just Mark and I, swapping our tiny little terraced London home – and the heartbreak of not being able to start a family – for an entire chateau in the middle of France… This has always been our dream. And now it’s coming true.

As I use the rusty key to open the big, creaking wooden door of the tumbledown fairytale chateau that’s officially our new home, I wonder: what could possibly go wrong?

Turns out my grasp of the language isn’t brilliant – and I’ve realised too late that I should really have got fluent before emigrating. But it turns out that the answer is ‘le tout’. In other words, ‘everything’ than can go wrong, will…

Will our marriage survive this adventure? With all the tumbling masonry, will we?

As the French sun blazes overhead, one thing’s for sure: it’s going to be a year to remember…