In the heart of the French countryside,
a magnificent chateau has been lovingly brought back
to life by an intrepid British couple.
Come on, missus!
Engineer Dick Straw bridge...
...and his wife, designer Angel.
This is the magic.
Over the past eight years,
over 50 beautiful spaces have been rebuilt, restored or reimagined.
Smile for Mummy! Smile!
The enormous leaking roof...
That's a bad sign.
The sunlight coming through the holes is not good.
...now safe for another 100 years.
The chateau's towering walls...
...almost restored to their former glory.
Honestly, I can't... It's exactly right.
Service!
Their hard work not only helping create
a successful wedding and events business...
People are smiling and they're crying
and they're hugging and they're drinking bubbly
and you know what? This house was meant to do that.
...but also, an extraordinary family home, bursting with love...
Up! Oh...! ..joy and laughter.
Now it's time for the final chapter in this French fairy tale.
One that is packed with new adventures.
What happens in workshop stays in the workshop.
Mysteries...
...plans...
High ceiling makes me want to have a swing.
...and problems...
Oh, no! Argh! THEY LAUGH
But best of all...
...a happy ending.
Summer is coming to an end and in the chateau's walled garden,
the giant sunflowers have stopped following the sun
and their heads are beginning to bow.
Right. Which one, Do die? That one.
That one? Yeah. That's a nice one.
OK.
But as each head can hold up to 2,000 seeds,
Dick and Angel are keen to collect a bag full
for both sewing and snacking.
Hold it, you got it?
Look how many seeds are left in that one.
Not that many. Not that many...
None. All the seeds have been eaten off that one.
Has Dorothy got some seeds on hers?
Dorothy's seeds have all gone.
We're a bit late.
Right, I'm checking them all.
As garden birds can eat every day up to half their body weight in seeds,
the family's fight for the sunflowers could already be lost.
Empty. Empty. I tell you what, we've certainly been keeping
the bird community going for a while.
Every single one's empty.
I found one. Have you found one?
Arthur's got one. Well clone, big boy.
Right, so we have got some.
Should we just bend it a little bit? Yeah.
See all the little seeds in it? Yeah.
What we can do is we can pull one seed out.
I'm glad we got one head at least, Arthur.
What does it taste like?
Don't swallow it. We have to save it for next year.
Pick up my bag for me, Do die. Is that big enough?
Er, I think it's a bit too big.
What you do normally is you bunch
the bag together like this with all our heads in all
the stalks, and then during the course of the winter,
some of the seeds may fall out, but it will all dry out.
Ancl then we'll have a bag full of sunflower seeds.
That is genius.
But what we could have got was just like a tiny little bag.
Well clone, come on let's go put it in the potting shed.
As autumn approaches
and the wedding season's soon coming to an end,
Dick and Angel begin to wonder if at last
they can turn a dream into a reality.
Aug? Yes, baby?
That's 120.
So, imagine if those two were French window door-y things.
OK. Yeah. You could put doors there. You can put doors there.
Even when the sun is in short supply,
the back of the chateau is bathed in morning light,
and so Dick and Angel have always wanted to create here
a beautiful glass conservatory,
known in France as a jardin d'hiver or winter garden.
How sunny is that view in the morning?
Dappled light, sunshine, mist coming in,
we could actually have somewhere to sit
and to take your tea or your coffee.
Look out over the moat and the rolling mist and things.
That would be magical.
It was the one thing we were missing
from our checklist when we looked at chateaux. Yeah.
We saw one particularly beautiful sort of winter garden.
Yes, I still remember it because it was
the most beautiful thing in that whole place.
I'm sure they had like a mini grand piano in there
and loads of sort of plants and stuff.
Managing expectations now.
I don't see it being mini grand pianos because the temperature there
is going to be very different.
So, when the sun shines, it will be lovely.
But it's not a heated part of the house in the same way.
I am happy with that.
Angel might not be getting her piano,
but she is very excited about another possibility.
The other thing that I've always,
always wanted is just a black
and white Victorian chequered floor.
Whoa. I hadn't thought about that, you see.
I just assumed I was going to be marrying on from this
and being wood. No. OK.
That's the... I know when to stop thinking.
I just...
I just know that I can see what it looks like. I'm jumping ahead.
You are. But I'm very excited.
When this is clone, that's the last bit
of structural work we need to do, cos it's sorted.
I can actually see us sitting there in our wicker chairs
having a cup of coffee and just looking out over the moat
and then the kids coming in and making loads of noise.
No, no, no, no, it's better than that.
Because we'll have little blankets over ourselves
and the grandchildren will bring us our coffee. Oh!
There you go. That's what this is about.
Oh, yes, please, yes, please.
But knocking through a large window is one thing.
Adding a whole new room to the chateau by suspending
a glass and steel winter garden 3.5 metres above the ground...
...quite another.
At the back of the chateau,
there's a little wall that goes down to water level.
Ancl the colour of that water? Blue.
We've got the windows in the back here.
We're going to be building...
...a conservatory.
From the main floor up here in the air, as the floor...
...comes up, it's going to be ornamental.
So, it's going to have little bits and pieces like that.
Ancl this is going to be a glass conservatory on
the back of the chateau here. Yeah?
Ancl it's going to be suspended on little cast-iron posts.
Ancl this window will become a door.
So, the door's there.
A bit of a challenge, but it's an interesting job
because here we need to make sure that we get
a little foundation for each of those posts.
Robin, who's at the end of the road, does metalwork.
He says he can build me the metalwork
to suspend my building in the air.
I'll be able to sit in there with my morning coffee...
...and watch the world.
Dick and Angel's dream will have to wait, though,
because this weekend they're going to fulfil someone else's.
Hello!
After a two-year wait, jean-Francois and Becky will finally be able
to say their vows in front of their son Isaac,
as well as their friends and family.
Good to see you. Hello, nice to see you.
Hello, good to see you, I'm Dick.
And it's also a major event for the chateau as it's
the biggest wedding of year.
Honeymoon suite, lovely.
This way, this way, young lady.
Oh, I feel like, let the games begin!
And, as always, Dick and Angel are determined
to make it as perfect as possible.
Even Dorothy and Dick and Angel's niece Sarah,
who's come over from England to help,
is checking every single chair's neatly lined up.
I don't know if she's my daughter.
Just like a millimetre this way.
Or that way?
Oh, no two millimetres this way.
And once everything's accurately aligned...
...and all the preparations are complete...
...the big day is finally here.
And time for jean-Francois, his friends and father...
...to attach their buttonholes.
Now we are looking the part, guys.
The guests given a welcoming glass of fizz...
Thank you.
...the cones of confetti handed out...
...and the most magical moment to begin.
Ladies and gentlemen, could I ask you to stand...
...for the arrival of our bride?
GUESTS: Whoo!
I always have two clean hankies.
Isaac, I need some rings, sir.
Well clone, big fella.
Do you want to pop them on there?
Kiss for Mummy and Daddy.
Isaac's clone his job, ladies and gentlemen.
Well clone, Isaac. APPLAUSE
I give you this ring. I give you this ring.
As a sign of my love and friendship.
Today I marry you. Today I marry you.
Ancl from this clay forward. And from this day forward.
Join my life to yours. join my life to yours.
Congratulations, jean-Francois and Becky.
I now pronounce you husband and wife.
Jean-Francois, you may kiss your bride.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
We officially have the best job in the world.
There's just something beautiful,
magical about being included in...
...someone's...in someone's special clay.
And later that afternoon, as the guests relax
and Angel's team reset the orangerie for the evening party...
...it's also time for Angel
to dress the semi-naked wedding cake.
Becky sent me a picture of the cake she wanted.
It's gold. I love a bit of gold.
But I hadn't used this.
I bought these little kind of edible gilding sheets.
Now...|'ve gilded a number of times, and it's fiddly.
Ancl I'm not doing it in the most relaxed of environments!
But it's got to be fresh.
It's got to be clone right this second.
With touches of gold leaf, home-grown greenery
and a final light coating of edible gold lustre,
the wedding cake soon turns from
a work in progress to a work of art.
I'm actually really pleased with that.
All we need now is Becky andjF.
Mr and Mrs...!
GUESTS CHEER
For Dick and Angel,
this year's wedding season has been unlike any other.
Because after a hiatus of two years,
not only has it been the busiest, but also...
...the most emotional...
...every hug and kiss just meaning that little bit more.
But they also know that none of it
would have been possible without their team of helpers.
Ancl honestly thank you from the bottom of our hearts
because I think it's just been an epic,
magical season.
Who's cried the most this season?
Oh, me. LAUGHTER
I don't know!
I'll raise you on that one!
But we honestly know that we
couldn't do what we do without every single one
of you and it's just been it's been a joy
and it's been absolutely gorgeous, this year.
And, I actually feel quite sad that it's over.
This is where the crying starts. This is where the crying starts!
Anyway, to the chateau family.
CHEERING AND CLINKING OF GLASSES
Thank you, thank you.
Mwah.
Well clone, well clone, well clone.
It's autumn, the wedding season is over.
And at the back of the chateau,
work on the winter garden has begun.
This ground hasn't been touched for 150 years.
There's no reason why anybody would have touched it.
So, a) we don't know what we're going to find
and b) we don't know how strong the wall is.
As the winter garden will be suspended 3.5 metres in the air,
three concrete pads will hold three steel posts
and half the conservatory's weight.
The pads have to be deep enough to make sure that
the weight of the actual winter garden is supported.
That's probably big enough for a pad to take a ton.
It's more than big enough, it's extra, extra, extra strong.
When you're engineering,
over-engineering is...how far over do you go?
The tougher we make it, the more people can be in there.
I don't think we need more than that, do we?
Next one.
And once two more holes have been dug
and concrete poured in,
all three foundations inspected and signed off by Petal...
...it's the cue to climb
the scaffolding and work out what's going where.
OK, we have to find where the floor level is.
So, what we're going to do,
we're going to just try chopping it off? Yeah.
And it'll be in there somewhere, won't it?
As the winter garden's floor needs to be level with
the one inside,
that means drilling through the freshly rendered,
60cm thick walls to find it.
Right. I'm taking full responsibility for making the hole.
Enjoy.
Oh, it's wobbling now, come on.
That is the top of the floor.
This here is the level of the floor inside.
Which means our floor is going to come out here nice and smooth.
Ancl this is a good old lump of granite,
which means it's going to be rock solid.
As well as turning the dream of a winter garden into reality,
there's also a big event being planned.
Arthur, give me 150g of marshmallows, please.
Ancl they need to be mini marshmallows,
so they melt quicker. Right.
It may still be a couple of months away,
but Dick and Angel are already
getting ready for their Christmas party.
And they're not just going to send out any old invitation,
but one enriched with little treats of home-made fudge.
So, we've got butter. We got marshmallows, we got sugar.
We've got cream here. Stop. Stop, stop.
Slow. That's good. Right, now...
...we have to melt this with the cream in it.
That looks nice, doesn't it?
Home-made fudge isn't just quick to make...
Over here, ready to heat up?
...but by adding marshmallows, extra smooth.
Look it's starting to melt, look it's starting to turn to goop.
Dorothy's got the chocolate.
Keep stirring. There you go.
Stir away.
Oh, can I lick the spoon please?
Wait, wait. Everybody back. Everybody back. Here we go. Look.
Oh, yes.
Ah! I wanted it to be all ripply and yummy.
If we're going to sprinkle
a few decorations on, you have to do it now.
I have to say,
if I got a little bit of this on an invitation, I would be smiling.
At the back of the chateau, Robin, who'll be making the metal base for
the new winter garden, has come to check the foundations.
C'est pas terrible, Robin? Non, c'est tres bien.
It's quite important because we need these three legs
to be all completely level with this.
And that means the three concrete pads that will hold
the steel posts in place
also have to be perfectly level.
Cest bon. Woohoo.
And now he has Robin's approval,
Dick's given the go-ahead to do a bit of demolition.
Nice and gently in different places.
Push the side, oh.
There we go.
Because, in order to install the new winter garden doors...
Right, there you go mate. There's one.
...the old window frames need to be removed...
...the original oak sill cut out...
Good.
It had another 50 years in it.
HE LAUGHS
...and the decorative wood panelling delicately...
BANGING
...whisked away.
OK, keep those because we need them
for repairs in other places as well.
Before replacing it all with new double doors...
I'm in my end.
Ow, fingers.
DICK LAUGHS
...which, once fingers have been removed,
need to be lined up.
Yeah, is it in the middle?
No it needs to go over, left.
Really? Dick's side.
Couple of millimetres, that'll do.
Happy? Yeah, yeah.
Rob, come on in.
First person through the door!
After just a few hours in the fridge,
the Christmas fudge is set
and ready for Angel to add to the invites.
Just take an end off,
just to make it look really neat.
It's very nice.
It's actually very smooth.
That's lovely.
This is the start
of their journey.
It's the invitation, it's the what is to come.
Ancl with the gold
and being able to open the tins,
it's all about the anticipation.
But it's not just the pieces of fudge
that are going to make the invitation extra special.
I'm quite excited by our invites
because they're our wedding invites
and they've been Christmas-ed up.
ANGEL CHUCKLES
And once the invitations have been stuck to the tin cans,
Angel can start filling them up with her sweet treats.
This goes in this way, upside down.
Ancl what's fabulous
is someone's going to get that,
open it up, get the fudge out.
Just small things.
At the front of the chateau,
a delivery has arrived.
Dick and Angel are hoping that their new winter garden
will float elegantly above the ground,
but to do that,
over 250 kilos of steel framework
first need to be erected.
Robin. Une piece sur le mur pour commencer 0 quoi?
Fortunately for Dick,
Robin's here to help.
OK. What we're going to do
is he's going to make it on the ground
and then he's going to levitate it
up into position.
I'm liking this, by the way,
so far haven't lifted anything heavy.
Soon though things begin to slip.
That has to move to lift this.
So, we're going to have to find a way of moving it.
It's as simple as that.
C'est bon. And while they work out how to free the forklift,
their backup plan's
to use their backs.
It was all going to be so easy with the forklift, wasn't it?
Luckily, a layer of gravel
and a tug on the tractor
is enough to get things going again.
You can see the size of this room now.
But what we're interested in doing is it has to do this.
That's the bit I haven't got my head around.
Robin, though, is well prepared.
He's got les grandee fourchettes.
Big forks.
He's got an extension for his forks.
He must think he can reach to the middle to lift it.
And the six-and-a-half-metre-long frame,
is rather easily raised into place.
The real mystery now though
is how an two-and-a-half-tonne glass
and steel winter garden
will sit neatly on top.
It is actually quite high.
A glass and steel winter garden's being built
at the back of the chateau,
or at least it will be once it's been unloaded.
This is an early French start, this is.
The sun's not even up yet.
I was expecting...
...a smaller van, I have to tell you the truth.
Hi, how are we doing?
But it's not just the size of the truck that's worrying.
There's that.
Are these for us?
Those?
Oh, stuff here.
I had a little heart attack there, that's nothing to do with it, it's up here.
Dick's also rather relieved
to see local farmer jean Bertrand
coming over to help him unload.
Ca va, jean Bertrand?
Dick, how are you?
Oh, good, good, good.
We have in the front 12 cases.
We have an extension.
We're making the chateau bigger.
It's too small. Too small.
JEAN LAUGHS
And when you know a friendly French farmer with a forklift,
unloading nearly three tonnes of steel,
glass, nuts and bolts
is fairly straightforward.
Oh, my goodness me.
What a morning. Let's get to school.
That is, until it's time for the school run.
Where's the car?
Oh, the car's behind the truck. Great.
I don't know where Daddy is.
Yes. Is it possible? Tha... Merci, Jean-Bertrand.
Hello. Hello!
I'll get started here. Excuse me. Beep-beep, beep-beep.
Oh, look. Teamwork.
Oh, look, I could get the lorry through that now.
Boone Journee!
But unloading 12 pallets of glass and steel is one thing...
They're all quite heavy.
...assembling it all 3.5 metres off the ground, Dick's idea of hell.
This is like the worst flat-pack you've ever seen in your life.
It's going to be about 300 fastenings.
Hello, you. Hello, baby.
Oh, that was a morning. Well clone. SHE LAUGHS
I can't believe it's not breakfast yet.
Oh, the colour. Oh, look.
SHE GASPS That's a nicer colour than I thought.
I love this. This is like my ideals age green,
so I'm super, super happy.
It's not the colour, though, that's concerning Dick.
Hands up here, anybody who has put together a conservatory
anything like this.
HE LAUGHS
The Winter Garden may be one of the last jobs
being done at the chateau,
but there is still one left on Dick and Angel's to-do list
that's been there from the very beginning.
.24, 25, 26...
Because eight years ago,
when they first arrived at the chateau,
the 150-year-old oak-framed windows were in a bit of a state.
The detail is phenomenal,
the amount of work that's gone into it.
They're really quite special.
Having said that, they're falling apart.
And there are rather a lot of them.
41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49,
59...windows.
It's just not even funny.
So, over the years, Dick has done his best
to fix the worst.
But, eight years' on, Dick and Angel have come to the conclusion
that it's time to call the experts in.
Bonjour! Enchante, enchante. Nice to meet you.
Sylvia and Rudolphe have come from Paris to discuss windows...
Tea, ginger biscuits.
...the benefits of British biscuits.
)e Vadore. Cest “ES bon.
And whether low-maintenance plastic
will be better than traditional wood.
OK, bon, la grande question, ca c'est le materiel.
C'est bois ou le plastique.
Obligation, wood.
The question is maintenance.
Now, we don't have problem because we,
we make the same protection of the car.
We have a big cabine of peinture?
Paint. Oh, yeah.
And we paint with a pistolet.
That's good for how long?
I'm sure, 20 years, you will make nothing, nothing.
OK, this is good. I have a question. The fittings.
We can keep the original fittings?
Yes. Yes. So that's decided then.
Ah, mais bon, pas fini, pas fini.
I agree.
This chateau needs to be brought back to where it was.
70, doncj'ai plus que 18mm. C'est mieux.
C'est bien.
As replacing almost 60 windows will not only take time
but will also be rather expensive,
the ones at the front on the ground floor
will be done first.
It's not easy, Angela.
No, it's not easy.
And, as they're keeping the original 19th century metalwork,
Dick and builder mate Steve first need to remove it.
When was the last time you took the metal off windows?
Errn, this will be my first time.
Me too! We can say that quite a lot, can't we? Yeah.
But as builder mate Steve has helped Dick and Angel
from the very beginning,
he's quite used to widening his area of expertise.
What's the most unusual job you've clone since you've been here?
Just there. That's...
I'd forgotten about the lift.
Yeah. Mate, the lift!
This is the big test, fella.
He's saying it's good.
It's good enough.
It's good enough? It's very, very good, never mind good enough.
When you came along the first time,
did you ever think that you wouldn't be allowed to leave?
No. DICK LAUGHS
Right, we'll have this clone by lunchtime.
It's been a challenge, hasn't it, fella?
It's not really been a challenge, though.
I don't feel as though it has,
cos I've loved every minute of it.
Now, that's a window. Hello!
You don't think it's been a challenge? No.
That's interesting.
You're right - it's not been a challenge, it's been...
Every job's been doable, one after each other.
Yeah.
Apart from going out in that cherry picker.
Oh, at the back. Your bum twitched. I know.
Your bum twitched every time I went up there. I know.
Do you want to do the bit above that as well? No!
HE LAUGHS
I'd forgotten about that. Yeah.
It was all over the place.
You didn't like that at all, did you? No.
GROANING: Come on. STEVE LAUGHS
Right, good - one clone.
One?! What? How many more is there? Five.
As the replacement windows are being made off-site
and won't be ready for a couple of months,
Dick and Angel can focus once again on the winter garden.
Hello.
Right, can you see what is it yet? Yeah.
Honestly, this is...
I can't actually believe that it's here.
You need to start thinking... Look, look, look, look.
Don't go too near the edge. Look here.
Yeah. The sheets of glass go in here. Yeah.
There's a sheet of glass inside each one of the bits.
Yeah. Ancl that can be fixed on three of the walls.
There's nothing to hide wires and electrics and stuff.
This place doesn't need a lot of decorating.
It's not going to need all these twinkly lights and... It's...
Right, sorry, sorry, sorry, did you hear that? Yeah.
Rob, did you hear that?
Yeah, can we please write it down somewhere?
Right, you can start thinking about decoration.
We're just going to do some more dog work getting it up.
This has got to be one of the best flat-packs you've ever clone, right?
THEY LAUGH
Perfect.
Now the winter garden's taking shape,
Angel's not only thinking about the furnishings,
but also how she can make the room more personal,
by re-upholstering antique French footstools
in her own inimitable style.
This is the trickiest bit
because we want this tube to go
over this bit of dacron and be the other way around.
Having made tubes out of two-metre lengths of cloth,
Angel just needs to pull them over two-metre lengths of foam padding -
a task that is slightly easier said than done.
I'm going to get my very expensive
tube threading device.
We are going to start to pull it down
and when you kind of get to the point where
you feel like you can get rid of your...
...your dowel, get rid of it. Bye-bye.
Don't need you any more.
Then we can start just taking it down.
I'm not worrying about the ends
because they are going to be woven onto this,
which is quite fun.
So, on the back here,
I am going to staple in.
There we go.
Just need one to keep me in.
Right, let the weave begin.
Weirdly, you don't want to pull it too tight,
because it flattens the dacron.
And, just like with everything, you know,
when you're upholstering something old,
there is no pattern.
You just kind of work it out as you go along.
And when the tube's woven its way to the other side,
it's just a matter of stapling it in place
and trimming the excess.
Outside, once the winter garden's roof has been fitted...
...Angel can start styling.
And it's not going to take much.
Honestly, I could have this, as it is, as a really nice balcony.
No windows, nothing.
It's just so stunning.
I always said it has to be Victorian.
You know, chequered black and white tiles
with sort of an edge around it.
There was no other option.
The Victorian craze
for conservatories kicked off when Crystal Palace was built
in London in 1851.
And, at almost 77,000 square metres,
it was, in its day, the largest enclosed space on Earth.
Here at the chateau though,
Angel's working on a slightly more modest scale.
I know that we need a breakfast table
because Dick needs to have his coffee.
But do we want plants?
I think we do but not to
the extent of, like, old-fashioned Victorian winter gardens
because they were, they had plants everywhere.
Oh, yes. Oh, Arthur's avocado plant.
I have been wondering where I'm going to put that.
It's got to be repotted, we need to be near to it,
because it needs watering every other clay
and it's too big for where I've got it.
We've only got another five or six years before we get an avocado.
It does feel like a place that you'd put your feet up.
I mean, this feels like you could come out here
and just be very, very inspired.
It's very peaceful. Why would you spoil that view?
At the back of Dick and Angel's 19th century chateau,
a wonderful new winter garden's been built.
And now the windows have been put in,
it's time for Angel
to give their new glasshouse some glamour.
I've managed to get my dream black
and white tiles, classic Victorian, chequered on a diagonal.
On a diagonal. Yeah.
So, shall we just quickly put down
the line, how it should be?
Because once we're completely aligned, you can just fly.
I can just crack on. Yeah.
Ancl are you able to go straight up to this edge here?
Oh, right.
You see, in my mind, they were skirting tiles.
Oh, no.
It's just an edging, you want? Yeah.
No, I didn't think we would edge this or this. Right.
No, these are literally edging tiles.
Well, it's a good job we chatted.
It is, it is. I'm with you now. Yes.
Also, I don't think that's going to look nice like that.
That was in my mind and I just thought,
"How are we going to do that?" but now that's perfect.
Right. Let's make sure that this one line is perfect.
Would that be there? No.
That'd be white, wouldn't it? Yeah. Oh, yeah, of course.
Like that. Yeah, yeah, lovely.
Right, let's just lay down and let's see where we get to
because if I'm happy on this one,
I know that the rest will just fall into place. Yep. Yeah.
And I quite like doing this, as well.
Chequerboard floors can be found in Ancient Egyptian temples
but they became particularly popular during the Victorian era.
That, to me, just looks perfect. Yeah.
Right, OK, I'm good. Thank you, darling. You're welcome.
I'll make you a cup of coffee. I'm going to crack on. Yeah, yeah.
See you in a bit. See you in a bit.
With work going well inside the winter garden...
...attention turns back to the front of the chateau.
Because five years ago,
Dick and the family not only planted 24 fruit trees here.
Three, four, five.
But also five nut trees with their roots deliberately
impregnated with black truffle spores.
That's it. Brilliant.
That's another tree clone.
We are doing stuff now for the future.
You know, we're not planting the trees for us, although
I'm sure we're going to get joy out of them.
We're doing everything now for the kids.
Truffles may be a subterranean member of the fungi family
but growing them takes time.
Now, we've got to wait for them to grow.
And though the trees have been here for five years,
there's no guarantee that what's known in the culinary world
as the "diamond of the kitchen" will be growing around their roots.
Our trees are young.
To find out, though,
Dick and Angel have asked professional truffle hunter Nadine
to come along and let her truffle-hunting hound
have a bit of a sniff.
I'm sure that we can find a truffle.
I'm not!
Do you have to do anything before she comes?
I put in the, in the ground a real truffle.
Inside chocolate eggs. Inside.
From a chocolate egg. Yes.
Inside, you put truffle oil.
Ah.
When we go to work, I prefer she find something...motivate.
To motivate her!
As they're hard to grow,
truffles can cost thousands of pounds.
I am ridiculously excited.
And so Dick and Angel would be very happy with a home-grown one.
OK. Let's go and get the children and we'll see what happens.
Hello!
Hello, puppy dog. This is Muffin.
Oh, no. I'm now in love.
She loves you was well, Dorothy.
She's bred to smell things.
Oh, Muffin.
Oh, tres ferocious!
We have to give her enough space to actually work.
Oh, look - she's digging. She's digging.
That's the first one found.
But hopefully she'll look around and find a truffle now.
Truffle energy.
She's searching.
Oh, look.
Oh, she's digging.
Every time she digs, I get excited.
Sorry, erm...
You must wait a few years.
Oh, merci.
Thank you, Muffin. Thank you, Nadine.
Oh. Thank you, Muffin.
You must wait sometimes ten years for having truffle.
Another five years.
Yes.
We're not rushing. You could come back.
Muffin could come and see us again.
We're kind of a bit in love with Muffin.
So, we'll make this an annual thing, if that's OK. A tradition.
At the back of the chateau, the winter garden's hard tiled
floor's been laid and it's time for Dick
and Angel to add some soft furnishings.
Now, I feel like one should go here.
Ancl then, I'll take that one here, thank you.
There you go.
It doesn't matter where I put it, you're going to move it anyway.
Come on.
Oh, you really have taken it somewhere else!
I've thought about this.
I've zoned it out.
I can tell just from looking at these,
these are all about looking pretty
and not actually working. Look at those bulbs.
Coffee zone.
As the winter garden gets most of the morning sun,
Dick and Angel are hoping to use it as their breakfast room.
When I was growing up,
coffee was instant coffee with hot water on.
Now, it's almost like it's an art form.
12g exactly, 24-second draw.
I need to teach the children how to do it,
so they'll just make it for me.
One footstool. Lovely.
As the original winter gardens were where
the wealthy grew tropical and sub-tropical plants,
Arthur's home-grown avocado plant should fit right in.
This is impressive.
You need to get a bigger pot for the thing to grow in.
It's like a triffid.
The winter garden may be brand-new
but very quickly it's beginning to feel like home.
I do like the fact that this is so still and peaceful.
It does feel like you're over the moat.
Ancl you know how I'm always putting twinklies and candles and cushions.
Not here. Not here.
You don't really want anything getting in the way.
What is interesting is the way this is going to
be different during the seasons.
Ancl in the summer, it'll be shining through there.
Ancl this just gives us a different view of the world.
I like it.
"I like it"? You love it!
I do love it.
Eight years ago,
when Dick and Angel were looking for a home in France to buy,
the Chateau de la Motte Husson was perfect in every way
except for one thing - it lacked a winter garden.
And now that there is one,
not only have they brought the chateau back to life,
but have now added their own imaginative imprint.
Opening up an underused area by turning
a plain wall into a piece of art.
The chateau's latest addition, though, isn't just good looking.
Because as it's now the breakfast room,
it's not long before it's filled with
the heady scent of quality coffee.
This is what I thought about when we decided to do this.
The sun hasn't come up yet but the sky is lightning.
We do rush around in our lives
and this place is all about...
"smelling the roses.
Or it could be smelling the coffee.
This isn't rushing it coffee.
The sun's going to pop up over there soon.
Six minutes to sunrise.
In the service kitchen, Arthur and Dorothy are preparing
a breakfast of coddled eggs, avocado and toast.
50 seconds left, Dorothy.
And in the absence of home-grown truffles, an aromatic alternative.
They might be a bit burnt!
Hah!
Oh, hello.
Da, da, da! Wow.
Oh, my gosh, my heart is absolutely bursting.
Who did the eggs? I put in the eggs. Both of us did.
And what 'flavour?
Oh. Truffle and this one is normal. This one is...
I still hold hope,
one clay we will have our own truffles,
shaved and put into our eggs.
Oh, that looks good.
Cooked to perfection. Hello.
Wow! Smell the smell when that comes up.
Is this Arthur's world-famous guacamole? Yes!
These are the best eggs I've ever had.
Right, give me your spoons, family.
First, children made breakfast. Cheers. Well clone.
That's amazing.
Well clone.
Guess what?
That is our first sunrise with our winter garden.
This place is going to be quite special.
Ancl all your life it's going to be here. Yes.
Not bad, huh?
Next time, it's Christmas at the chateau.
Exciting!
You can take the mickey afterwards! Concentrate!
A time for fun...
...friends...
Hello, Mummy!
...family and festivities.
What a journey it has been.
Ancl we have clone it as a team.
This is the best year of my life!
Subtitles by Red Bee Media