A Year at the Chateau: As seen on the hit Channel 4 show

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How the had the energy to do all this work and prepare for their wedding with two little children in tow is amazing.

I would love to be adopted by them if they wanted an old kid 🤣😂 I mean I couldn’t do a few things that they do but everything else is perfect. Throughout A Year At The Château, the dark bold text is Angel telling the story and the normal text is Dick. I simply love it when waiters are friendly and you can ask them for menu recommendations or new local events to attend. When Nicola's husband, Dominic, retires they decide not to spend their days finding hobbies to fill the time until Countdown is on.I've read the book, learnt a lot about owning a château and enjoyed hearing about their story from two different view points.

As someone who has never seen it, I felt that it glossed over so many things and was really lacking detail in places I was really craving more. It was obvious to me that this was all written from memory or that details noted along the way were very sparse. I have watched some of their show but their attitude really puts me off, I guess that should have been a warning against this book but was hoping they would be more humble and kinder in print. Most fans have watched the series several times during the past year, so we was expecting and excited to received something new and different about the chateau, but I was left not learning anything knew. But I have to admit that, upon learning that she has ripped off Michael Petherick's design and claimed it as her own (and is now making bank with that design on a ton of merch), a lot of the shine was taken off while I was reading this book.

Along the way you'll read glorious descriptions of rural life in France, with charming characters, delicious food and wonderful seasonal produce, together with the extraordinary list of renovations and restorations they completed, many of which were never shown on TV. There is little about renovating the chateau, and tons of repetitive chatting and wedding preparations.

I found Fizz, the youngest, to be the most amusing with her attempts to build a You Tube channel and to become an influencer.Soon after, we discovered that, in our part of France at least, you don’t pay to park over lunchtime. We hadn't really followed the television series but (naively) assumed that this was a couple with a vision who had acted on their own. This is more or less what I was hoping for when I read Downton Shabby, I think—a light read that is chock full of personality and, you know, castle.

All the characters have different expectations of life in France and different ties back in Britain. If you really want to watch and experience nice people restoring a chateau I suggest going on YouTube and watching “The Chateau diaries” and “Doing it ourselves” both are likeable and kind to the people around them, oh and the focus is less on themselves and more on the chateau. They take turns reading a bit then there is a pause and Dick picks up from Angela which is a slight relief.And not from a script but Angel and Dicks own opinions on how work and life progressed on the move and building work. I would have liked a more "real" account of the struggles of owning and renovating a derelict château, managing a family and being essentially broke (their word).