Escaping to the country can be a dodgy dream

A young couple planned to sell their one-bedroom London flat for three quarters of a million pounds and buy a "secluded house with a country kitchen, five bedrooms, large gardens, stables and a paddock", based on a couple of farm holidays they'd had as children.

We've all had dreams like that, unless you've always lived in the country, in which case you may dream of moving to London. I'm not saying it can't work, it often does. But perhaps a bit of experience helps, regarding invasive smells, no pavements, loud animal noises, tractors on roads, oh, and blatant sex going on in the fields. If you don't like these things, then you're better off in town.

And doing a place up is another dodgy dream, though I can say from experience that whatever happens, you live through it and laugh afterwards.

Our first experience was a croft house in Aberdeenshire, comprising two rooms and a "kitchen and bathroom", with no damp-proof course, no running water, just a well, and a septic tank fit only for one old man.

But it had four acres for a few sheep, calves and a pony and only neighbours across the fields, with shouting space for the children and dogs. Perfect!

We lived through no bathroom or inside loo for several months, snow when the foundations of the extension were just started and at the same raising a dozen orphan lambs to start our flock.

It was a steep learning curve, even though we weren't new to country living or animal keeping, so I'm always pretty cynical when watching "Escape to the Country."

We have done things to most houses we have lived in since, and I love it, and our children have dabbled with house alterations and agree that living through our first "adventure" taught them that it's got to get pretty awful before it begins to be fun and worthwhile. They obviously have clear memories of the build, even though they were all under seven. They remember the excitement of seeing their new bedrooms appear - not to mention a proper bathroom, and the magic of our ewes producing their first lambs.

And that couple? They decided they needed to live a little nearer London for the theatres and shopping. How disappointing for them.

Rosemary Allen is a retired livestock farmer living near Ellesmere