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Original poster

Escape to the Country

124 replies

MatthewBramble · 11/05/2019 17:20

This is utter bollocks isn't it. They never buy any of the houses shown, there's a boring bit in the middle about local "crafts" or what have you and the "mystery" house is always totally unsuitable in one way oe another.

Kirstie and Phil could have re-housed a small town in the time these idiots waste on bugger all.

OP posts:
alittleprivacy · 11/05/2019 18:12

I remember way, way, way back in the day part of the lure of the countryside house was how much house you could get for your city budget. People would sell their very ordinary 3 bed suburban semi and be amazed by the big gardens and extra rooms they could now afford. They'd see 4 videos of houses on a laptop and choose two to visit. Or take a chance on the mystery house. (I always figured I'd chance the mystery house as you could still arrange viewings of the other three if you were really interested.)

Kernobhead · 11/05/2019 18:12

Pretty much every show has the following stereotypes:

Woman who loves cooking, wanting the kitchen to be the heart of the home
Man who has a hobby involving a shed
Woman who needs workspace for sewing / crafting / painting
Joke about woman taking up all the storage space in the bedroom ‘that’s enough space for me, not sure where you are going to put your clothes!’ Tee hee, how original...

ImposterSyndrome101 · 11/05/2019 18:13

Same @RosaWaiting and AdoreTheBeach. My housemates all think it's the weird and sad Grin.

It's one of my guilty pleasure shows alongside others like it. They're so crap and fake but my mum would watch them during the day when I was ill while hugging me so now when I'm sad or ill or missing her (I live a good four hours away and don't drive) I put it on. I often watch it as I'm going to sleep because it's soothing.

Spudlet · 11/05/2019 18:14

And of course the best of all - the ones where 'Mother' has sold her house and they are all going to live together. Mother is then shunted off, and the couple are shown palatial houses... with a cobweb-strewn barn or garage, or distinctly dingey holiday let 'which will make a perfect granny annex!' Lucky Mother...

floraloctopus · 11/05/2019 18:17

You'll have to ask them to spill some beans Eve, you can't tantalise us like that!

Kernobhead · 11/05/2019 18:19

Oh, I love the granny annex ones! Poor dear has sold up, used all savings in a house that she gets one room of! One of the granny annex’s I remember was a room above the detached garage!

badg3r · 11/05/2019 18:19

Ooh I love it, especially the couples who are boring as hell and insist on thing like, no this kitchen island is too small and it doesn't have an aga, when they are currently in a tiny two bed in Croydon with a half size dishwasher and no outdoor space (fwiw I love Croydon, and our half size dishwasher 🤣). How the other half live. Or not, as it usually turns out.

Kernobhead · 11/05/2019 18:24

Another rarer twist is when there are two separate family’s buying together as friends. I remember one where they initially looked for a house that could be split in to two residences. The mystery house was one where it couldn’t be easily split, so they would have all lived together. If memory serves me correctly, they bought that house. Two couples and loads of kids all in the one house.

What happens when one side want to move?

BettyBooJustDoinTheDoo · 11/05/2019 18:24

Yes and it’s always ‘mother’ who has put in the bulk of the funds yet she gets the converted airing cupboard to live in.

Kernobhead · 11/05/2019 18:25

Another two families one was where there was a couple and a single friend wanting houses on the same plot. Only the budgets were wildly different, so the couple got shon around huge country pile, and the single friend got grotty annex or gatehouse in the grounds.

Awkward!

floraloctopus · 11/05/2019 18:47

Kernob I remember that one.

Shoppingwithmother · 11/05/2019 18:54

The thing I hate is how they sit them in the back of the car. Always with one person in the seat behind the driver, and their partner (usually the woman) squashed up right next to them on the barely-existant middle seat.

Obviously this is to get them all in shot at the same time but it looks so awkward and fake.

DuckWillow · 11/05/2019 19:01

I remember an episode where a woman was looking for a large house with enough space to fit 12 people round a dining table (her kids, grandchildren etc) and she sneered at everything they showed her. At the time she was living in a bloody caravan. So definitely fitting 12 round a dinner table there.
I was like "ffs woman just squeeze everyone in like the rest of us do".

AdoreTheBeach · 11/05/2019 22:50

For those who don’t believe any of the houses are purchased, there have been a number of follow up episodes following the purchases www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08d65s2/episodes/guide

LolaSmiles · 11/05/2019 23:03

What makes me laugh is the brief vs reality.

32 year olds Andrew and Lucy are looking to trade in their urban lifestyle for a slice of rural living. They're ready for a new pace of live with daughter Matilda and son Wilfred in rural Kent. They've sold their 2 bedroom flat in outer London and want to be on a commuter line to the city, where Andrew is a broker. Let's hear what they are looking for: 'we ideally want a detached house, minimum of 4 bedrooms, preferably 5 so we have an office come guest room. We want to be ideally in a rural area with country views, but also have that direct link to London. With a growing family we also need a double garage, a reasonable sized garden and possible room to extend in the future. Having moved out of London, we're hoping to be getting a lot more for our money.'

Then they seem surprised that a large detached house in rural commuter belt is way outside their budget.

Mythreefavouritethings · 11/05/2019 23:08

God, in the latter days of my pregnancy I found myself sitting up at all hours watching this dross for some reason. An hour of watching yet another parochial couple in cardis and a naice pair of slacks dicking about in a six bed country house with a decrepit old shed they plan to turn into a b & b. And oh God, the mandatory segue into the local Morris dancing group and its history 😩

HopeClearwater · 11/05/2019 23:15

So often it’s clearly the second marriage for both of them too, maybe that’s why the overly tactile behaviour. I often look at the puce-of-face overweight husband and think ‘this distance from civilisation will be rubbish for the hospital appointments your incipient heart condition is going to require’...

Caribbeanescape · 11/05/2019 23:17

There was one years ago, where the family wanted to buy in Devon. In every house they visited, they wanted to rip out all the lovely original features and rip up the garden and have AstroTurf instead.

Thatsnotmyotter · 11/05/2019 23:21

I never understand how a stained glass artist and an entrepreneur in their mid 30s have the best part of a million to spend on their ‘rural retreat with studio space and workshop’.

StoneofDestiny · 11/05/2019 23:23

The killer is that so many of these buyers appear to be buying a house for their flipping dog or horse - not for the humans!

BettyBooJustDoinTheDoo · 11/05/2019 23:25

Yes to the rather ill looking house hunters who want to live in the middle of nowhere, have they not heard of the golden hour?

AnnaComnena · 11/05/2019 23:28

So often it’s clearly the second marriage for both of them too

I remember one where the man had a dream of buying a country house big enough for his grown up daughters and their partners to come and spend weekends and holidays with him and his second wife. Over the course of the programme it became evident that the wife didn't want the daughters visiting and the daughters didn't want to come. The couple ended up in a very small 2 bed right on a village street. I felt sorry for the man.

And another one where the woman said she would take out the log burner and put in a flame effect gas fire

donajimena · 11/05/2019 23:28

A young couple from Australia had a budget of 750k on one. How on earth do you get that kind of budget?

little0miss0mac · 11/05/2019 23:31

This is our go-to weekend afternoon viewing, to the extent that I record it on the sky box so we have lots stacked up and ready to go. This has the excellent benefit of being able to fast forward though the dull crafty bits and ad breaks, so it doesn't take long to get through an episode.

We like shouting at the telly: "that's exactly what they asked not to have! Fucking thatched roof you morons! Different county! Shit garden! 75 acres! Wrong direction from family!"

The absolute nadir of presenting is also on ETTC - I don't know his name but it's the young guy who in our house is known as Shouty Man. "DO YOU LIKE IT THEN" is about the peak of his subtlety. And it's all about him. "I KNEW I WOULD GET THAT REACTION".

LOLling at my own detailed understanding of this show 😂

BettyBooJustDoinTheDoo · 11/05/2019 23:36

As much as I enjoy looking at the houses, ETTC used to have people on who just had an average for the area house budget, you can still get gorgeous little cottages within an average budget just smaller versions, it’s not just people with loads of money who can and want to live in the country, I used to love seeing the sweet two up two down cottages in Catherine Gee’s reign.