Original subtitles

Every year, 10,000 Brits cross the Channel

to start a new life in France.

Bonjour, Monsieur. Deux kilos de tomates, s'il vous plait.

Engineer Dick Strawbridge and his partner, designer Angel,

decided to join them.

I'm sure they said that was four euros,

and they've only given me 50 cents change.

But while they thought their budget might stretch

to a modest little farmhouse or a gite,

Dick and Angel discovered they could dream bigger.

Much bigger.

It's so gorgeous.

This is the story of one family's extraordinary adventure

as they try to turn an abandoned chateau

into a fairytale castle in time for their wedding.

We're just excited to see this place breathe again.

They've been through every kind of renovation hell...

..from ploughing through three-foot-thick walls

to plagues of flies...

This has been vacuumed about half a dozen times.

..and mislaying their own sewage system.

Where do our sewage pipes go?

I'm really hoping it's not just filling up the basement somewhere.

With just a few weeks to the wedding...

We have nearly killed ourselves.

Everyone's knackered around us.

..they still have hundreds of jobs to complete.

Whoa!

This could get messy.

The race is on.

Dick and Angel have spent the last eight months

restoring the 45-room Chateau de la Motte Husson,

which sits on its own island in the Pays de la Loire.

Their castle and 12 acres of land

cost them £280,000...

..and was irresistible - on paper.

The writing is just so delicate. I mean, you can't read it.

You'd need a little monocle.

Built on five levels, it has 45 rooms,

and is so big it could fit nine British new-build houses

inside its four walls.

But they soon found out why these historic monuments

are so cheap to buy.

They are bottomless money pits.

We're tight, with loans, with money,

and everything's expensive here.

SHE LAUGHS

Before long, their savings were sunk

into a monumental plumbing and heating system.

First fire done. Heat!

But they've still got major works needing urgent attention.

Oh!

That's very, very unpleasant.

It's now autumn.

They're getting married in just a few weeks,

when 200 guests will be descending on the chateau.

They have to speed up even more if it's ever going to be ready in time.

Angela and I do 18, 20-hour days.

We get to bed maybe two, three in the morning,

the kids are up at six or seven, and that's our standard day,

because we know we've got so much to do.

We're jiggered.

COCK CROWS

With his nuptials looming,

Dick Strawbridge has just one thing on his mind.

Sewage.

He's been waiting for a vital report

to tell him how to dispose of his waste.

Oooh.

Ha-hey!

This is the assainissement report, the sewage report,

and I think we pay by weight.

Obviously it's expensive.

With a house full of guests due, Dick has to get the system working.

Oh! Dick, what are you doing?

But all they know, from running dye through the pipes

when they first arrived, is that the chateau toilets

flush somewhere into the moat...

maybe.

Angela, Angela, wherefore art thou? Oh, flushing the loo.

HE LAUGHS

There is no red dye there.

The report, which cost 500 euros,

includes plans for a whole new septic system.

See what we're going to do with our poo!

Under French law, they have to make it green and clean

within 18 months of purchase, or face prosecution.

A self-confessed scrimper,

Dick hates paying outside contractors for anything.

They've arrived. Bonjour!

Ca va? Ca va bien. Ca va?

But the septic system is way beyond even Dick's skill set.

A big family business down the road are putting in our septic tank.

This week we should have our sewage, so when we flush the loo,

it doesn't go into the moat.

That is going to be phenomenal.

It may have taken six months to make it happen here in France,

but when it does happen, you're really happy.

Bertrand, bonjour. Bonjour, ca va? Ca va.

Dick is going to have to prise open his wallet.

The job will set him back nearly £10,000.

The 1,800 gallon tank is standard for the building,

but there's nothing standard about the chateau.

Half of the septic system needs to be located

on the other side of the moat.

To do that, a dam will have to be built for a pipe to be laid.

Now, this is basically a settling tank.

All of the waste is going to fill up our big septic tank.

It will then come through our pump, and our plan says

from this pump we are going to go across the moat,

over to this field, and we're going to have a sand filter.

And as it works its way down here, down some pipes,

in there it's a little ecosystem.

It breaks it down, bacteria breaks it down.

And what comes out of our overflow here is basically clean water.

That clean water can then make its way back to the moat,

because it's clean.

They'll lay the pipe across the narrowest part of the moat,

where it's 20 feet wide, but standing in their way

is more than a million gallons of water

and a mass of medieval sludge...

..and the ancient foundations of a medieval castle.

I have to admit, I actually twitch

when people start digging up around here.

There is literally history everywhere.

HE SPEAKS IN FRENCH

Ah, OK.

Someone has actually found an old wall.

We know a drawbridge used to go down over there for the entrance way

when this was a fort with a moat all the way around it.

The big stones in there are from the old castle that was here.

That's real medieval stuff. That's to stop the knights getting in.

Probably to stop the English.

Sh!

Digging deeper, Bertrand hits another snag.

As fast as he enters the hole, it fills up again.

Not surprisingly, because we've got the moat all around,

there's water when you dig a very deep hole here.

The pump drains the hole to allow them

to create an emergency concrete base.

We're mixing concrete in the bottom now.

Normally you add water to your mixture of sand,

your gravel, your cement.

But all they're doing is putting it in there

and letting the moat do the mixing.

It's happening.

While Dick grapples with the sewage...

..Angel has taken delivery of an unusual art installation.

It's going to be like a big explosion of butterflies

that are going to come up the wall and the ceiling,

and oh, it's going to look nice.

My one reservation is that, actually, even though I've done 200,

I don't know if I've got enough.

And every one takes about five minutes.

I'm not going to do the maths, but you know, it's a lot of hours.

All this effort is not just for their own nuptials.

The couple want to launch a vintage wedding business.

The chateau has to start paying for itself,

or their whole dream could be short-lived.

There's that formula that Dick and I always harp on about,

that you've either got time or money.

SHE LAUGHS What one have we got?

We've got neither.

And we're a bit mental, aren't we?

Angel is hoping that her own unique approach to interior design

will appeal to potential customers.

The giraffe's not real, by the way.

But she still has to convince her groom-to-be.

Quite a lot of things are arriving.

My pineapple light from America has arrived.

It IS a pineapple.

It's nothing like a sparkly chandelier.

No, I know, but I love it.

I know you don't get it, baby.

We've always worked by the rule, "As long as we like it."

You know, it's not for everyone.

Do I like this?

Oh, yeah, we've always worked to the rule, "As long as I like it."

SHE LAUGHS

There's two weeks to go

until Dick and Angel get married.

There are still hundreds of jobs that need to be done.

They have to speed up.

The French team, working on the sewage, are full steam ahead.

But over the previous months,

the couple have found it hard to pin down French labour.

Trying to get French workers to do stuff for us was so painful,

so slow, so expensive.

So their answer is to tap into a whole community of British

expat builders who turn up on time and do a full day.

We've had to get some more labour in.

We would never ever have got everything done.

I mean, just painting this place is months and months.

People like Steve, a plasterer from Bradford via Normandy,

who might give them a fighting chance

of finishing this mammoth task on time.

When I first came down that drive there, I just thought, "Crikey!

"There's going to be some work there."

The size of it...

I feel privileged to be working on something like this that

hasn't been lived in for a long, long time, and you're putting it

back as a family home, the way that it was built to do.

One project at the top of the never-ending to-do list is

the crumbling balustrade where they want to take their wedding pictures.

As a matter of urgency, we know we need to make this part safe

because it's a bit wobbly and falling off the balustrade

would be a bit embarrassing for everybody

or, if somebody walks underneath, they'll get a rock in the head.

It doesn't sound at all funny when you say it like that.

But finding a French builder to fix the problem

has been predictably difficult.

I got a stonemason who quoted 3,000 euros to fix it,

1,000 euros of which was for the hire of scaffolding for a week

so having asked him to do it because we thought, well,

I said I'd do the scaffolding but he can come and do it,

haven't heard from him for three months.

Tried e-mails, phone calls and can't afford to wait any longer,

so the bottom line is we're doing it ourselves.

Steve, the tiling, plastering, painting guru that we've got,

has also done some stonework, so between the two of us,

I'm going to save 3,000 euros and we're going to do it

in probably two days.

I think that's going to have to come off, isn't it?

Got to come off. Got to come off.

What's interesting, if you look inside here,

there's a piece of metal going that way.

The iron rods that have been binding the stonework together for 150 years

have rusted and expanded, cracking the stone.

What they need is some new steel rods

to link all the jigsaw pieces together.

Dick decides to dismember some of his old British tools.

This is not vandalism, all right?

This spanner is good metal but it's also something for a car-boot sale

and it's imperial, which means it doesn't fit many of the nuts

and things over here and I've got a whole

selection of things like this in my work box and...

Chop this up and all of a sudden it gets repurposed and it's useful.

And what's more, it saves me money.

The spanner was made to be unbreakable.

Even titan Dick and his angle grinder are having trouble.

Yes!

The recycled rods are a perfect fit

and a quick-drying epoxy resin secures them in place.

It's a type of steel that won't rust.

Hopefully, it's going to be there for years and years.

Dick's new steel rods are set vertically as well as horizontally,

so when the stones are laid on top, they will lock in securely.

It's 6pm.

Time for the septic team to clock off.

As far as I can tell, they've come, they've sucked, they've built,

they've...

done various bits and pieces but I still haven't got sewage.

But there's no such reprieve for everyone else.

The British team works into the small hours to ensure

the chateau is ready for its first party in nearly half a century.

HAMMERING

The days are flying by.

The expat army is working full tilt.

And Angel has her wedding planner hat on.

Right, entranceway.

Pineapple chandelier, done.

Unicorn, side-saddle, bit of fou-fou.

Quarter of a day.

In the kitchen, Dick's slaving over a hot stove,

but he isn't making pain au chocolat.

He's baking sand.

It's an ingenious trick for the balustrade outside.

Dry sand to add to the epoxy mix so it's this colour as opposed

to being the white mix we've got and giving it the texture of stone.

That's what Steve said, so I'm just agreeing with him.

It's dry in here. I'm going to leave it here till he needs it.

It's nice and warm as well.

Right, the radiator needs to be straightened.

Got some alligator skin and fox heads to come in here.

All the rods that Dick's made out of his old tools are set

in position, so the last pieces of the jigsaw can be put back together.

Sat on there, it's sat on the pins

and that sets. It's going nowhere.

Mm-hm.

If the last one fits. THEY CHUCKLE

OK, honeymoon suite.

This...

This still needs quite a bit of work, but...

It's not the end of the world if this isn't perfect.

Yesterday, I felt really panicked.

Today, I feel like I'm in a bit of a better place.

Erm... I think we're going to do it.

Got lot of cooking to do.

And I'm getting my legs waxed today.

BLEEP! I'm getting my legs waxed. I better get on.

The last pieces of the balustrade are returned to their rightful spot.

The mortar, which has been mixed with the baked sand,

blends with the stone and Steve fills in the cracks.

No guests will be tumbling into the driveway now.

Right, weather forecast.

If it's like this next week, it will be great.

Fantastic.

One week to the big party.

But the moat is proving to be much more of a problem.

A dam that the French team were building to hold back over

a million gallons has just burst its banks.

It's very difficult to stop the water.

C'est trop mou. Trop mou. Where you...?

Voila. OK. La pelleteuse, elle va glug-glug-glug.

La pelleteuse va glug-glug-glug.

What that basically means is

because we've got enough water to cause an armoured knight on a horse

a problem, we've also got enough water to cause a digger a problem.

It's turning into a bit of a major civil engineering project.

I've got a fixed-price contract.

Thank goodness for that!

Fortunately, Jean-Bertrand does have a plan B.

So now, they're making a dam based on a big piece of tarp

and that basically means that it shouldn't flow back in so easily.

The tarp will act as an extra barrier to hold back

the medieval sludge while the trench is drained overnight.

I think...

It will be good.

There is progress being made inside at least.

The chateau is beginning to show her finer side.

But Angel is having her own sacre bleu moment.

A flower company has reneged on its promise.

The flowers that I wanted aren't going to arrive.

The customer service in France is BLEEP ridiculous.

(Unbelievable.)

Angel's wedding bouquet can't be delivered

until the day after the ceremony.

Oh, hi, I need an order that could get somewhere tomorrow.

Is that possible if I placed it now?

Well, to be honest, any that you've got.

No, I fully understand that.

Would it easier if I just ordered it on the internet and then

if it didn't come, it didn't come, because I'm having...

Right. OK.

Meanwhile, Dick has worries of his own.

He's nervous about the ability of his four working toilets

to take the strain of 200 guests.

Angela got a quote for some porta-potties,

portable loos for the wedding and they reckoned to get

six porta-potties, I think for three days, they quoted 1,900 euros.

It just makes you shiver, it's just wrong, isn't it?

So if I turn this old loo into a men's urinal,

it may just work.

A 19th-century nobleman might have turned his nose up at a urinal,

but for modern vino-swilling Brits, it's ideal.

CRACK!

That's not a good sound from a joist.

I reckon...

For less than 100 euros, one stronger on that side,

piece of wood across there...

Next time you see this, it's going to be a pissoir.

Expat builder Jay is recruited to install new joists.

While Dick carves out a plywood floor.

Yay!

In theory, you could just pee here.

But I'm putting the bath in to give the chaps something to aim at.

Trench warfare has broken out all over.

A giant ventilation system, which is being connected to the new

septic tank, is also proving a stubborn project to complete.

We have to do a ventilation pipe that goes all the way up

to the attic and, of course, it doesn't go up the side.

That would be ugly, so it's going up all over the place

so there is another hundred metres of evacuation tuyau.

Sewage pipe.

The pipe is meant to trap bad smells and release them up high,

but the route it will take is like a map of the Paris Metro.

We've gone from the tank all the way through the ground floor,

through the cellar, through the back room, through the utility room,

we've gone through the backroom which is going to be a cloakroom,

back through the kitchen, where up to the first bathroom.

We've got another bathroom

and we've got two bits of attic to go through, so...

It would be more fun if there was less of it.

Hold on, hold on.

After dozens of phone calls and e-mails, Angel is making progress.

Yeah, they look good.

If I had a preference,

I'd kind of want a muted colour or a dusty pink.

This is good. Just don't even complicate it,

just go for that, yeah.

Great, that's brilliant. Thank you so much. Bye.

I think, and I don't want to tempt fate,

but I think there is someone in Mayenne that has them.

You know that's just wasted an hour of my time

and I actually want to have a shower and put some make-up on.

And feel a bit more brighter than I do at the moment.

I've had my legs waxed. Can you tell?

SHE LAUGHS

First time since I've been here.

One set of suppliers who do turn up on time

are Angel's favourite faux fur taxidermists from Cardiff.

Not content with her safari collection of animal heads,

she's also asked them to make a special wedding gift for Dick.

I've bought you some plastic, darling,

so we can do some more painting.

That's going to scare the kids silly!

That is amazing.

Can we get it up here?

Legend has it that the region's last wolf

was shot from a window in the chateau.

That wolf stood guard in the stairwell.

Today, like so much of the chateau, that myth is coming back to life.

Yeah!

Oh, my God, Dick...

I need to take a picture.

That is truly amazing.

It's a nice little touch, isn't it? Little touch?

You are joking!

It's a bloody great wolf!

Darling, I am over the moon.

Thank you, you two, for all your work.

Can you do that? HE HOWLS

Are you lost, big fella?

Who is this man?

Drew! You have sprung up big time.

In the days leading up to the wedding,

family and guests start to gather from far-flung parts of the world.

Oh-ho! I reckon it's Jimmy and David.

Hello, family.

It's perfect timing,

as Dick and Angel need all the help they can get.

Right, tell me your skill sets. Yeah. Right.

We'll fill you in on what tasks we've got for you.

THEY LAUGH

As the chores are divvied up,

Dick's mum and his three sisters draw the short straw.

We haven't got time to go shopping, Angela and I,

so I'm going to send my mum and my sisters out.

The shopping list has got to be scaled up

and they're going to go and get confit chicken gizzards for me.

HE LAUGHS

It's going to keep them busy.

It's a double trip, in other words?

No, it's probably not a double trip.

It's probably a monster trip, just. Oh, good.

Well, Richard, that's something we can do that's useful..

Get coffees. I'm going to check on grub, cos I've got to go and get my hair done. OK.

OK. Cups through there...

While Dick's mum and his sisters head for the supermarche...

..the chateau quickly turns into a forced-labour camp,

Strawbridge-style.

See the far side of the moat? Yes.

I'd like you to put four stakes six paces apart.

Just to stop people falling in the moat. OK, got it.

Meanwhile, Angel has roped in some of her artist friends

to paint the old barn doors...

which will be the entranceway to another of her flights of fancy.

This room is going to be the adult party room.

Sophie and Sam, friends from London,

are here doing an illustration

which is going to be the fun house for the wedding.

Arthur Donald, what do you reckon of that? Look.

Nice! LAUGHTER

Thank you so much. Great job. Great job.

What does the monkey say? HE ROARS

ADULTS LAUGH

The wedding is almost upon them.

What lies ahead, in terms of preparation, is daunting.

But at least the French have turned up early.

It's just turned eight o'clock. We wait to 9.30 and hope they turn up.

Bertram's team are actually motivated.

With a bit of luck, six months after starting all this,

we could actually have flushing toilets.

And the team are now coffee-d up and ready to work.

Bonjour, Jean-Bertrand, ca va? Bonjour.

They're not the only ones who are up with the lark.

Angel still has a list of chores as long as both arms,

including framing the 19th-century plans of the chateau.

OK, so we're going to have...

First floor, second floor. Yeah.

The picture will be landscaped. Yeah. Good.

We got given the original plans for the house

and I was so happy with just getting these up.

It's like, you know, it is all the finishing touches,

but that's the bit that everyone goes, "Oh, doesn't it look great?"

Outside, the French are putting their finishing touches

to the septic system.

The makeshift dam survived the night

and a vacuum tanker is now able to suck up the remaining mud.

Whoa, oh-ho-ho! Jean-Bertrand!

After barrelling through the moat's one metre-thick walls,

the team is finally able to connect the leach field to the chateau

with a 16-metre-long plastic pipe.

The leach field is like a tiered French slice cake,

set into a newly dug trough with perforated piping.

A double helping of gravel.

A porous membrane.

All topped off with a five-ton dollop of sand.

After the sewage has travelled under the moat

and seeped through all those layers,

it ends up as clean water

which then leaches back into the land.

This system here will be where all of the bad stuff

comes out of the water.

It'll settle in here.

By the time it overflows, it's going to be clean.

This time next year, there'll be stuff growing on top of this.

This is just going to be a green field

with a little green cap sticking out of it.

You're never even going to know we were here.

After six months of planning, 200 hours of work

and the small matter of rearranging a medieval moat,

Dick's septic system graduates to legal status

with a conformity certificate.

Au revoir. Merci. Au revoir.

We had to get it done before the wedding

and it was a bit hit or miss, but we got there in the end.

At last, the wedding is coming into focus.

And Angel can switch her attentions to the 19th-century orangery -

one of the seven outbuildings on the 12-acre estate.

It's where their wedding feast will take place.

So, then, that's going to go in the middle.

I'm going to just do it like this...

which is in no order, yeah?

But I think it looks sweet. Yeah.

Great. Everyone has their name on the napkins.

It's always the little personal details that people remember.

Yeah, so, get 15 cake plates out in there,

so, then, that's pretty clear, isn't it?

See, I always get a bit too excited at this point

and then don't have any space for food.

Everything seems to be coming together.

Wedding tomorrow.

The afternoon is wearing on.

So many people working really hard.

And I don't think there's a single room where there's not activity.

People are cutting up something in one room.

People are peeling spuds in the other.

We've done a ridiculous amount in a short period of time.

Even Angel's elusive flowers have arrived.

That is not very impressive at all.

Let me take a picture of that.

I've got to say, that is...

That looks a bit naff.

And dead.

I just ordered them cos they looked quite good online,

but it's just like ordering a burger from a fast-food restaurant.

It looks bloody lovely online. It turns up and it's like BEEP.

I will not use that bouquet.

A second supplier delivers more blooms for the house,

but it's too late for her own bouquet.

It's just, you know, half the battle in any business is, like,

finding your suppliers, finding good people to work with,

getting a good team together.

Trying to do that and this and the kids and the wedding, it's just...

SHE LAUGHS

After nearly a year of back-breaking work on the estate,

there's still a long way to go, but phase one is almost complete.

Dick and Angel have just one job left.

What do you want me to do? Hold those for a second.

Yeah, I could do that.

What we're going to do... Yeah?

We hang it up there like that in the middle. That's... OK.

I would have put it higher. These are the bits of wood we had. OK.

I know, at this time of... Come on, let me put it in.

Right, I need you to hold your side.

Right, we need to be below there.

Right. In here? Mm-hm.

Good. Well done.

Careful. Yeah.

That's in. Right. Stand back and make sure it's in the middle.

It... It's fine. I knew it was.

Oh.

Done. Come on, that's virtually in the middle. That's good.

This looks brilliant.

We live here.

It's Chateau de la Motte Husson.

We live here!

It's so cheesy, but we...

Come on. Come on, let's go.

For Dick and Angel,

transforming their 45-room chateaux has been a true labour of love.

They've worked solidly from the depths of winter...

I've got to say, it's a bit chilly.

..to late autumn.

DICK LAUGHS

There's a nine-foot drop... to nothing.

16 hours a day, seven days a week.

I think he's an absolute nut job. I think he's crazy.

I'm far too old for this.

On top of the £280,000 it cost them to buy...

BLEEP

..they've spent the best part of £100,000

on renovations and the wedding.

That's a singing Frenchman on my roof. He's whistling.

Shall we pretend that we've escaped somewhere?

Whatever the setbacks,

Dick and Angel kept charging into battle time and time again.

I think it's necessary.

What a monumental pain in the arse.

And now, at last,

they can savour the victory.

After 40 years of lying dormant,

this chateau is finally recovering her poise.

Once upon a time, she was damp, derelict

and falling apart at the seams.

Then two knights in shining armour came along to rescue her.

The kitchen, or sous-sol, was crumbling and covered in mould.

Now it has all the comfort and elegance

of a grand country house kitchen.

Arthur and Dorothy's playroom,

with its peeling wallpaper and wood infestation...

..is now a palace of the imagination.

The dark and dingy grand salon was a neglected chamber

with faulty wiring.

Now it's been returned to a state of grace and sophistication.

And the chambre de monsieur,

with its disintegrating plaster walls

and rotting window frames...

..has become a vast suite of rooms fit for the newlyweds.

In fact, all the rooms are bursting with warmth, atmosphere

and originality.

Are you happy with this place? Yeah. I'm really happy.

This room, since we came in here -

heating... I know!

..power, lighting. ANGEL LAUGHS

Windows. It's clean, it's painted.

I don't understand the paint. That's your department.

And that bathroom's a nice bathroom now, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

Right. The hole in the wall.

ANGEL HUMS AND LAUGHS

You should carry me over when we get married.

Are you pleased with it? Yeah.

I think it's a lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely room.

I had to make all of the pictures in exact lines for you.

And just even hanging those bloody umbrellas up there was a pain.

Baby, there's nothing you haven't moaned at, like, honestly!

Because that's what you like to do, just grumpy man. Ssh!

Do you remember that day of knocking things down?

DRILLS WHIR

I think these are officially one room.

I've got to admit, that was...

one of the highlights!

Destruction.

Do you know what the worst thing about this is?

By the time we've, sort of, finished your marriage

and all the rest of the stuff...

We're just going to end up putting the kids to bed and going to sleep!

Ssh! That's the reality.

The one place that looks big to me is out here.

It's the entrance, yeah? The entranceway, yeah.

And who'd have thought we were going to have two unicorns?

Me. I thought that. Do you know what?

I love the pineapple chandelier.

I love it. I absolutely love it.

We came out here and we fell in love with the pattern on there

and probably our biggest challenge,

the rear staircase to ceiling.

I know. That's crazy, isn't it?

Do you like...? I didn't think we were going to get it done. No? No.

I'm really looking forward to the wedding,

but I'm really looking forward to living with you.

Yeah, well... I know. We made it happen.

I love you.

It's the day of the wedding and, for once,

the master of the house is nowhere to be seen.

In true tradition, Dick is staying elsewhere

until he takes his vows.

Are you comfy on that? Yeah, yeah.

What Dick has achieved this year has been phenomenal.

I mean, the infrastructure, the plumbing, the electrics,

the, you know, sewage,

because that is like a 20-man job for nine months.

He has just been so incredible.

We have nearly killed ourselves.

I've nearly killed Dick.

He's wanted everything to be just right and perfect, and so have I,

and we're really knackered. So, I just want to, like, "Ah..."

Ah... I AM a bit knackered.

And everyone is knackered around us...

as well.

Everyone is knackered around us.

But work cannot stop.

200 people need to be fed.

Troops of French waiters are amassing in the courtyard,

and a handful of vintage waitresses have been

summoned from across the Channel.

It's a chance for Angel to step up as lady of the household.

What we're going to need,

I need you people to be on the bar all the time,

and three people in the kitchen all the time, washing up.

HE SPEAKS IN FRENCH

Three o'clock, when everyone starts to arrive,

you are going to serve them the bubbles. Yes.

Then, four o'clock, you are going to be over in... Oh, I see.

Serving the teas. Right. Yeah?

And then the French team are going to take over.

It's very important that we get everybody very drunk today.

HE SPEAKS IN FRENCH

Angel is wearing multiple hats -

that of bride, wedding-planner,

and major-general in charge of her domain.

I think that's it. That all seems straightforward, doesn't it? Yeah.

CHURCH BELL RINGS

It's almost noon,

and three miles away in Martigne,

the wedding guests are gathering at the town hall.

It is almost compulsory, this kissing!

Back at the chateau,

Angel has finally switched from wedding planner to bride-to-be,

and her father Steve prepares to give her away.

Right. Wow, look at you.

Wow.

Ah-Ah-Ah-Atchoo!

Right, how are we doing for time, gentlemen? Are they late? Yeah.

Do you speak French? Un petit.

Oui.

I, uh, speak, uh, little English.

Come on. I'm not going to be late because of you!

It is exactly five years since Dick and Angel first met.

Little did they know their dream would come true in France.

It's right here. Left here, I mean.

CAR HORN BEEPS

Just here is lovely.

Yay! Look at this! Look at this!

Witness this beautiful lady.

Oh...

Oh!

CHEERING

Come! Whoohoo!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The civil ceremony is presided over by the local mayor.

After just a few minutes, Dick and Angel are man and wife.

Merci, monsieur. Thank you.

CHEERING

CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS

CAR HORN BEEPS

Driving back, Angel has one more DIY emergency for Dick -

her special hold-up stockings are being held up with...

well, bits of string.

It's just fallen down. Where's the string?

I've been holding it up with a garter. Where's the string?

Well, you can tie it. Have we got a piece of rope at home? Yes.

I'll get... No, this one is fine.

CHEERING

We're married!

The guests are an amalgam of old friends and new...

including some of the British builders

who have worked on the estate. That's fine, thank you.

London plumbers Lee and Kyle

know everything there is to know about the chateau.

Mind your head.

They spent many weeks in the bowels of the building.

This is amazing...to see how it has transformed.

No-one knows what we know, do they? No.

Thanks for giving us your men. We used them enough.

A bit of a change since the last time? Just a bit(!)

We're getting there. You almost look human!

The menu is a mixed platter of British

and French rustic cuisine, including confit of gizzards

with onion marmalade, and rabbit stew with cider.

All the produce is locally sourced,

including their own chateau-grown quince chutney.

You may notice that we have done a lot of work on this place.

Lots more to do. On your plate, you've got a knife, fork and spoon.

That is your cutlery for eight courses.

LAUGHTER

We had a choice between plaster or buying soup spoons...

That's the facts of life.

Have a lovely meal, and I hope you thoroughly enjoy yourselves.

But a handyman's work is never done.

And Dick's skills are called upon once more.

Come on, Dick.

I need my glasses to do this job.

Slight issue.

The front door lock strike plate has come loose,

potentially trapping all the guests inside.

Just a little bit of maintenance on the front door.

That's how you do that!

The first party to be held in the chateau for more than 40 years

is a roaring success.

The guests are lubricated with fizz...served in vintage teacups,

of course.

And Dick's pissoir is finally christened.

Is that it? Hang on.

He wants us to pee in the bathtub?

I think we have to check and see there's no towels.

After you, sir. I've heard about the spiders.

We can have a sword fight.

THEY LAUGH

MUSIC PLAYS

CHEERING

Hallo, and welcome to my wife and I.

We are so, so pleased to have you here in our...HOUSE.

LAUGHTER AND CHEERING

It feels like a HOME.

CHEERING

Nine months ago, we were so naive.

We didn't know what we were going to go through,

and we have put an awful lot of graft into this,

and there's been a lot of people helping us along the way,

and this place was meant to be full of people having a good time,

and Angel and I are loving it.

Thank you so much for being in our lives. Thank you so much.

CHEERING

Subtitles by Ericsson