Does anyone else share my guilty pleasure ... watching Escape to the Country

[IamtheMistressofmyFate]

I always fast forward over the presenters trying out worthy pastimes or learning a local trade like sheep tickling.

I cringe when the couples are being introduced to us and they've been instructed to look at each other and smile and the camera lingers for too long.

And I wince when the retired couple want a large house so their grown up children can come and stay over Christmas - don't these people read all the AIBU threads where posters loathe visiting family over Xmas?

I hate Jules and Alistair

How could anyone hate the gorgeous Alistair? Now Jules I could understand, mainly because he's called Jules ...

I don't get the passion for needing "space for entertaining" but that could just be because I'm billy no mates ...

I love Alistair Appleton. He is very cultured and speaks four languages. I love his soothing voice and calm demeanour. Sometimes, when life is particularly hectic, I fantasise about living in a platonic ménage a trois with him and Nigel Slater. Nigel would do the shopping and the cooking while Alistair would take me on country walks and read me poetry.

Alastair’s my favourite.

Has anyone else noticed that half the couples want an acre of land so they can keep llamas? I just don’t get it.

Love Jules and his rosy apple cheeks.

All the auld folks who want 6 acres and rural when they’re on the cusp of losing eyesight and needing mobility scooters is hilaire.

On an aside, I love watching what the female presenters wear. Loved the a line floral shirt she was wearing yesterday. Anyone recognise where it was from?

I also hate the bloody couples who wander rounds the house holding hands wtf, are they afraid that one of them will make a bolt for the door and run off screaming. As for the ones who say not enough room for our table/bed fgs you've got thousands, buy another one.

Thank god it’s not just me SpottedZebra the man steering the woman around each room gives me the rage as well, the hand holding like a pair of eight year olds in primary school is bad enough, but my god the steering drives me batshit!

IheartNiles I know! I think if I was retiring I’d want to move closer in to a town or city with everything on tap rather than be miles from anywhere.

I also laugh at the way they slate the large detached period property in a couple of acres that Jules is so enthusiastically showing them saying it’s not big enough/private enough/ not enough land for lamas and the house they currently live in is a 3 bed semi in Bolton.......

“We’re downsizing, so what we want is a little cottage just for the two of us, perhaps a bit of a garden.”
“Here is the Palace of Versailles.”
“oooh... it’s a bit cramped.”

“oooh... it’s a bit cramped.” with the catsbum face...

53rdway and Glasgow hahahahahahahahahahahaahhaha

Is it shallow that I only like watching the ones where their budget is over 700k? I WANT TO SEE HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVE DAMMIT.

My PIL's old house was on it a couple of years after they sold it. Lots of features were remarked on and attributed to the current owners including the garden that my MIL had put her heart and soul into for 15 years.
She was APOPLEPTIC when she watched it, she kept shouting 'I did that, that was me!' at the telly.

Antiques Roadtrip is my guilty pleasure. They always seem to grind the sellers down to a quarter of the asking price and I wonder if the sellers would tell them to fuck off if the camera wasn't there.

As most are moving miles from friends and family why do they all need so much space for entertaining? Who are they going to entertain? The local farmer who has to be up at 3am? Or maybe all the locals who will be queuing out the door with freshly baked cakes, home made jam and pickles with handwritten labels? Or maybe they’re looking forward to getting the local vicar and his wife round (even though he’s actually now covering 25 local villages). Also on some of them when they ask now how much is this house on the market for? Why do neither of them pipe up £859,545. I’ve been watching this one in rightmove, it got reduced on 1/3/18 from 895,950? Surely if you’re searching in an area you’ll have seen everything relevant on the net?

Also, my DH hates the way it's called a "mystery" house. Whenever the phrase comes up he says "Or, in other words, the LAST house".

Agree, when they say "it's a bit cramped" and you could fit a pool table in there with space to play.

Dave Gorman does great observational comedy on ETTC.

heavenleigh - I will look out for it!

deadbudgie - I agree. I did an episode where a woman said she'd seen it in the Internet. I wonder why they don't say it more often, before we moved I'd looked so often I could have been the blooming estate agent for the houses myself.

I did see an episode

@glasgowworrier - I live in Cheltenham and my neighbours are Terry and Pauline :)

This thread has made me laugh, YY to all of it.

Newly retired people who now live alone as the DC have flown the nest suddenly need a place 4 times the size they have and in the middle of nowher, with loads of land to maintain. But want the 'village feel' even though all the villages look like the sort of place where a newbie walks into the pub and everyone stares, and you would have to be born there to be accepted.
I always chuckled when that well known property expert Aled Jones presented it.

Does anyone remember a property programme on on the mornings where Damon from Brookside among others would sit outside in the garden with headphones on while people looked round the houses? They listened in to the conversations?

Where do they all get the vast amounts of money from? I wish I knew this!

And these houses all seem to have 'a boot room', never in all my life have I ever met anyone with a boot room!

Is it shallow that I only like watching the ones where their budget is over 700k? I WANT TO SEE HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVE DAMMIT. I agree. I want to see an episode where they have a £2 million budget. Bring it on.
I often imagine them coming to see my farm with broken down sheds, hideous decor and dead sheep waiting to be picked up. That's the country matey!

I also love Relocation Relocation, where they’re always searching for a 7-bedroom place somewhere in a National Park plus “a crash-pad in the city” for the bloke.

I don't get why ever needs an en-suite. All that cleaning! And why retired couples need huge gardens that they are going to struggle to maintain as they get older.