WELCOME TO CHRISTMAS AT THE CHÂTEAU!
Dick and Angel Strawbridge’s French festivities
After we exchange our bonjours, Dick Strawbridge launches into a fast, fluent monologue that my French listening exam experience can’t stretch to. When I make my excuses, Dick, 61, offers that he actually failed his French O level three times.
If, like me, you’re a fan of Escape To The Chateau, Dick’s TV series with his wife Angel, 42, this anecdote of perseverance won’t surprise you. After all, this is the couple who bought a sprawling, dilapidated French château and turned it into a family home and successful business. The setting in question, Château de la Motte-husson in north-west France, is stunning in all seasons, but at Christmas it’s magical, as Dick and Angel go all-out to create festive perfection for their children, Arthur, seven, and Dorothy, six.
FESTIVE TRADITIONS
‘As a family, we choose our Christmas tree from a forest,’ says Dick. ‘The children are running around trying to find the best one, and once it’s chopped down we take it home tied on top of the car. It’s a wonderfully messy, wet, muddy way to start Christmas,’ he adds, sitting next to Angel in their personal suite at the château with its green
and white striped wallpaper, grand mirrors and eclectic artwork. Then there’s the fun of adorning the tree with their accumulated decorations while listening to old Christmas songs, which has Mum and Dad as excited as the children. ‘We’re just big kids,’ laughs Angel.
On Christmas Eve, the family leaves out port, mince pies and carrots for Père Noël and his reindeer, and early on Christmas Day, Arthur and Dorothy excitedly wake to open their presents.
After a snack of baked ham on toast with mustard and home-made chutney, the cooking of Christmas lunch is in full swing, but there’s always time for a walk around the château’s grounds in their best outfits. ‘I always get the kids totally dressed up – it’s a day to go over the top,’ says Angel. ‘Dorothy loves it and will want to wear the most outrageous outfit. Last year, I had Arthur in a white shirt and within minutes he was rolling in the mud, but you know what? It didn’t matter. It’s Christmas Day!’
FRENCH INFLUENCE
The day is a delicious mix of British and French traditions. ‘Last year, we had bûche de Noël (yule log) as well as Christmas pudding,’ says Dick. ‘You know the gap left for pudding after you’ve eaten a great big lunch? It fills that gap very efficiently.’
If that all sounds too perfect for words, be assured it was a long time in the making. The first time the couple walked through the château door in 2014, Angel stood in the entrance hall and planned where a plug socket would need to be in order to light up a Christmas tree. ‘We had no electricity, no water, no sewage, but we knew where we were going to put the plug for the Christmas tree,’ says Dick, ever the pragmatist, with a hint of sarcasm.
‘It was so far down Dick’s list, but I’ve always had a vision of this house being alive and the kids running around and it having that energy,’ says Angel. ‘Having plugs for your Christmas tree is very important!’
The couple’s dream of making a life for themselves in France started in London, where they met and fell in love in 2010. On their first holiday together, in the south of France in 2012, the idea that they could set up home across the Channel came to them, and what started as a search for a townhouse became a mission to find the perfect château. Their two children arrived as the hunt for their family home continued and, in October 2014, they found the one. It cost €395,000 – most of their budget – and by January 2015, they had the keys to their 45-room château and outbuildings, set on a plot of around 12 acres complete with woods, a walled garden and a moat. Later that same year, Dick and Angel were married and they’ve since grown their wedding and events business, written books and opened up their home to TV crews.
LOCKDOWN TRIALS
The Strawbridges have clearly packed a huge amount into a decade but, like everyone, they were forced to press pause in many ways this year. Dick and Angel returned home from their Dare To Do It tour as France was going into lockdown in March, and their imminent TV filming was cancelled. Ever the optimists, they hoped normality might resume in a few months and started by delaying some of the weddings that were booked to take place in the château during the summer until later in the year.
‘We then realised that actually, nothing was going to happen this year,’ says Angel. ‘The weddings that we could do were 10 people, socially distanced with masks on. No one wants that sort of wedding. Next year was already largely booked and we couldn’t put two years into one. So, we’ve rolled a few into 2021 and the majority, who didn’t want refunds, have now been postponed until 2022.’
Dick and Angel are a huge, hands-on part of their guests’ big days and Dick says it’s been hard managing the disappointment of everyone involved. ‘A bride doesn’t just turn up for a wedding,’ he says. ‘She’s had years of planning dresses, decorations, deciding on everything she wants… We’ve had Angel in tears, brides in tears…’
It wouldn’t be like Dick and Angel to sit still and wait for their fortune to improve, though. With the wedding season
Going around with your mind in neutral is such a waste of a life
cancelled, they realised they had to find some new projects. So they wrote their latest book, A Year At The Château, which takes a detailed look at their first year of renovations, and self-filmed the TV series Make, Do And Mend, helping viewers with DIY during lockdown.
There’s been a welcome increase in time spent together at home as a family, exploring nature with Arthur and Dorothy. Their mantra is ‘sucking the marrow out of the bones of life’ and Dick explains just what that means: ‘It is about getting every last bit of goodness out of what you have. Getting as much as you can from the opportunity you have is a really important mindset, because going around with your mind in neutral is such a waste of a life. You only get one chance at it. Our life is full,’ Dick tells me, touching Angel’s arm.
SIMPLE PLEASURES
‘We go for walks along the Mayenne river with Petale [the family’s new Kerry Blue Terrier],’ he adds. ‘In the summer we take a picnic, which is whatever Angel has in the fridge and puts in her rucksack. We sit down and watch the kingfishers. How simple is it to go for a walk? That’s what we have to remember. That’s sucking the marrow out of the bones of life.’ Dick and Angel are celebrating 10 years of being together in November, and five years of marriage. They had planned to finally take their long-overdue honeymoon, which was postponed after their wedding due to their children being young, and delayed year after year. They thought their anniversary would be the perfect time to get away and celebrate but, of course, 2020 had other plans.
Instead, to mark the milestone, they will be toasting the occasion at home, and viewers of Escape To The Chateau will get to see Arthur and Dorothy serving their parents a meal based on all their favourite memories.
When I ask what’s on the cards for the next decade, Dick and Angel give answers that highlight their personalities neatly. ‘We are people who like to keep ourselves busy and who like to keep our brains engaged and active,’ says Angel. ‘I don’t think we’ll ever stop being those people. We’ll take each year as it comes and see what the next few have in store.’
‘We’ll have more of a plan than that!’ adds Dick. ‘We’ll take it year by year and fine-tune the direction we’re going in.’
During our conversation, as is the case when you watch Dick and Angel on TV, it’s clear to see that this is precisely why they work. Together they’re a wonderful, seemingly unstoppable mix of creativity and dreaming; engineering and planning.
‘We don’t do anything we don’t enjoy,’ Dick tells me just before we say au revoir. ‘That’s one of the beauties of our life. That beauty is all underpinned by being here and living in a bit of a cocoon... Our bubble is coming around the top of the driveway, looking at the château and smiling.’
A Year At The Château (Seven Dials) by Dick and Angel Strawbridge is out on 29 October