A couple of years ago, Ged and I fell in love with

La Mancellière and decided to leave behind our friends, families and the bright lights of London to embark on a mad adventure in rural France. We have given up jobs and lifestyles that revolve around the city and are jumping feet first into the unknown. Our simple aim is to create an original, comfortable and relaxing home-from-home for our guests and to develop a working, family home for ourselves. We will be growing our own food, recycling and composting rubbish, raising chickens and attempting to be as self-sufficient as possible without boring the pants off people. We will be ditching high heels for wellies (at least I will) and swapping sushi for soup with the intention of slowing our lives down to a more laid-back, healthy pace. Our hope is that La Mancellière will reflect that change of pace and become somewhere people want to revisit year after year.

His other half is Lisa, a journalist and translator who loves all things French. She is a keen gardener and has been itching to swap a tiny London patio for something a bit bigger. She speaks French, Spanish and Italian but is still trying to get her head around the Normandy dialect. Given half the chance, she would happily spend the rest of her days growing veggies, cooking and making cakes.

Ged is a graphic artist by trade who switched to I.T. a few years ago to indulge his undeniable talent for tinkering with toys, computers and gadgets. He has a passion for travel and spent three years driving a camper van called Winnie around remote regions of Australia and the South Pacific. He loves football and is on a mission to find a French pub that serves a decent pint of Guinness.

Cinnamon is a once-tubby tabby cat who managed to lose an impressive 2.5 kilos at kitty weight-watchers and is now looking forward to terrorising French cats with her newly svelte form. Cinnamon is sweet when she wants to be and maddeningly aloof at all other times. She enjoys sleeping on radiators, barking at birds and eating as much as possible, as often as she can.