First up people, the chateau is NOT for sale.
It's getting close to 11pm in France and Dick and Angel Strawbridge are - so exciting - Zoom-ing in from their famous chateau which stands tall and proud over the French countryside, about a three-hour drive south-west of Paris.
They are in Dick's office, model sailboat and other bits and bobs in the background on an old mantlepiece, one of the only rooms in which Angel has not been allowed to apply her amazing transformative touch.
"It's full but it's not decorated. Books, mementos. Just collected rubbish of mine," Dick says, in typical no-nonsense Dick fashion.
Over the last eight years, the couple's effort to turn a then crumbling 17th century castle without electricity, sewerage or water into a home and a business has been chronicled in the British-made program Escape to the Chateau, which won them millions of fans around the world. The final episode was screened in Britain late last year as a Christmas special but filming - surprisingly - hasn't stopped for the family. More on that in a bit.
But what about this so-called sale?
Dick, moustache bristling; Angel eyes twinkling; say it's just clickbait and fake news. Yes, there is a chateau for sale, but not theirs. Just one which featured on a spin-off show they hosted. But that doesn't stop the headline writers - "Escape to the Chateau mansion for sale".
"Oh get out," Dick says, when asked about it.
Even the thought of packing up a 45-room castle is giving him the heebie-jeebies.
"I'd rather stick a big pin in my eye," he says. So Dick.
And it would be inconceivable to think they could walk away from the chateau after all those years of hard work; right when it is completely at its peak, totally renovated and now hosting weddings and other events in the most magical of settings.
"This is completely our forever home," Angel says.
And it is a legacy for their children, Arthur, 10, and Dorothy, eight, who are also featured on the TV show, often dressed to the nines, mucking in, whether in the walled garden or kitchen, having adventures alongside their parents.
"We got to the stage last year, with the roof done, the render done, windows started, we have future-proofed the chateau for the children through eight years of graft," Dick says.
"And what that basically means is, if they decide they're going to take it on, because this is our home, they haven't got the scary idea of 'The roof needs to be redone', or 'Oh my god, there's a big bill'.
"We have future-proofed such that we're not passing them a poisoned chalice. We're giving them that opportunity to be and do whatever they want."
Dorothy and Arthur are travelling to Australia with their parents, along with Angel's parents, Steve and Jenny, to all appear on stage in their Dare to Do It! tour, which starts in Perth on February 12 and ends in Canberra on March 9. It's almost like meeting up with old friends.
"I think when we get there, people are going to be quite surprised by how tall the children have got quite recently. Arthur is my height now," Angel says.
The family will be in Canberra for two shows - March 8 and 9. March 9 swiftly sold out. The March 8 show was added and tickets have been selling fast.
On stage, in real life, the couple is promising all the stories - from who they are, how they met to why they dared to do it all. Canberra is in for a fun couple of nights.
"Every night will be fantastic but there is always something about an opening and a closing night," Angel says.
"We may not behave," Dick adds.
They are looking forward to all Australia can offer - Arthur can't wait to try a barbecue, Dorothy wants to see a koala, Dick and Angel want to explore and see in person their many fans, some of who they have been corresponding with for years.
"I don't know if you know, but Australia was sort of the first place to adopt Escape to the Chateau after it was made," Dick says.
And they promise to meet everyone, genuinely thrilled they have struck a chord with people, not just with the renovating and decorating, but with their attitude to life - of getting out and having a go and seeing what happens.
"The theatres will chuck us all out," Dick chuckles.
"They get a bit worried because it's one in the morning and we're still saying hello to people."
Angel agrees.
"It's really an opportunity of a lifetime and we're not going to be 'Hi, bye'. We're going to make the most of it," she says.
On this winter night in France, Angel has her trademark flaming-red hair pinned back under a jaunty beret and a paisley scarf around her neck, while Dick is cosy in a jumper that looks left over from his army days. They are often referred to as the odd couple. On paper, perhaps, they are. In reality, they seemed destined to be - so creative and capable and such a wonderful team.
How they got together is something for the show. Let's just say it was through a mutual friend.
Dick, a former lieutenant colonel in the British Army, had also been a TV presenter for years before Escape. And Angel had her own vintage hospitality business with high-end fashion clients. She won over the British public when she appeared on Dragon's Den, the local equivalent of Shark Tank, in 2010 and secured backing to expand her business. She is 44 and Dick is 63 but age is nothing. They just work.
"It's a ridiculous story. The fact that we're actually together," Dick says.
"There's no way you could sit down and write a little love story - 'This old fart born in Burma back in the '50s, meets this beautiful buxom wench born in Essex in the '70s'.
"It doesn't make any sense, but it makes a lot of sense. We talk a lot about that in the show, because things are meant to happen the way they happen. If either of us had made a different decision at any time in our lives, we wouldn't have come together. We wouldn't have Arthur and Dorothy or the chateau.
"They happen because people are positive and do positive things. The dare to do it concept - if you procrastinate and say, 'Don't do it', you don't know where you're going to go. You get one pass in this life."
Taking on a castle surrounded by a moat that hadn't been lived in for 40 years was a perfect example of them daring to do it. Dick can talk for days of the intricacies of getting sewerage in the building; he can set his mind to any mechanical challenge and then serve up a roast for dinner. He does whatever Angela bids. It seems.
"If I say no to Angela, people don't ever show that on telly," he says.
"I get such grief from husbands who think I'm a pushover. I'm not.
"I'm just a grumpy old fart. I'm not a pushover, by any stretch."
Angel, whose signature vintage kimonos and 1940s-era hair rolls have been copied by fans, has transformed each room in the castle into something unique and beautiful, using initiative, a respect for history and a keen eye for a real find at the markets. She, famously, found rolls of in-tact original wallpaper in the castle and sectioned off pieces to make a stunning "wallpaper museum" in the turret. She, too, can do anything.
And they banter and bicker like other couples and it feels authentic. As does their mutual respect.
"We didn't know what we were going to do but we knew we were going to have a family together and when we made that decision, all of a sudden, a bloody castle came into it," Dick says.
The couple bought Chateau de la Motte Husson in 2015 and in the first year, Dick worked for National Geographic, making TV shows, and putting all the money he earned back into the chateau. Room by room the chateau was renovated. Weddings started. More money could be poured back into the resurrection of the chateau.
They've now done close to 50 weddings over the eight years, three-day memorable events with Dick and Angel at the helm, making it all feel special and personal.
"That's the number of weddings that some chateaus do in a year. We never wanted to turn it into a sausage machine," Dick says.
Guests at the weddings are sometimes surprised that Dick and Angel are really doing everything, with the help of a small staff, perhaps thinking they are just there for show and not realising they are there to work.
They say, 'Oh, can we have a picture before you go?' And we'll say, 'We're not going' and they're like 'Really?'," Angel says, of guests at the events.
"That is one of the reasons we were looking for a fairytale type home, as a backdrop to doing this as a business. And whatever the children decide to do, they will have a source of potential income if that is what they decide to do. We're trying to give them a canvas to play if they want." And the enterprise has expanded, with the Escape to the Chateau brand now extending to everything from printed fabrics to Walled Garden gin.
So, favourite rooms?
"I still smile every time I go into the wallpaper museum in the honeymoon suite. That gives me so much joy and still looks really fresh and lovely in there," Angel says.
Dick, he of all the utilitarian stuff, suddenly gets all emotional and sentimental about his favourite room.
"We've got an extension on the back of the chateau and it's sort of a wrought-iron conservatory. I sat out there last weekend with Dorothy and she was painting and I was reading and doing some work. I had a coffee, she was sitting there humming and Arthur was in the playroom next door doing some LEGO building and I was thinking, 'This is why we did this'. That quality time."
Sharing their life on television, the Strawbridges understand people get invested in their life and may even want to visit them. The house is off limits but tourists do stop at the end of the drive to take a selfie with the chateau, pick up a beautiful postcard that are available there and maybe have a chat with Dick or Angel as they leave the property for the school run.
"We have not wanted to put big gates up because once you put big gates up, no one will be able to see the chateau. So we've kept it quite open and, on the whole, it does work," Angel says.
The family has not quite turned off the cameras just yet. They are filming a new travel series called Secret France which indulges their love of exploring.
"We have been asked a couple of times, 'What's it like without the cameras there?'. And we're like, 'We don't know yet!'," Angel says.
Secret France is scheduled to go to air in England later this year, no doubt also making its way to an Australian network as well.
It's been a different kind of show, one of pure pleasure rather than sheer work.
"We've been obviously, and rightly so, so focused on the chateau, and we've had a few family holidays and seen a few areas, which has been really really lovely. But we moved to France because we love it. And in that ironic way, we haven't had that time to go and explore," Angel says.
"[Secret France has] been a real, real pleasure. And when we go anywhere, what we like to do is walk the streets and find those gems that you wouldn't ordinarily find in a guide."
So what are they most proud of about the chateau?
"I think that we've created a happy place for the family," Angel says.
"The children are happy. The business is doing good. It's been a lot of hard work. And we've got electricity, water, plumbing!"
And you can't put a price on good plumbing.
- Dick and Angel's Dare to Do It tour is at the Canberra Theatre Centre on March 8 and 9 at 7.30pm. Tickets are still available for the March 8 show here.
