No Going Back: A Year In Tuscany (C4)

House Doctor (five)

RICHARD and Sarah Turnbull, who've swapped Yorkshire for an olive farm in Tuscany, were facing tough times as the arrival of their first paying guests approached. The guest accommodation wasn't finished and, to add to their woes, a broken pipe meant the whole place was without water.

With ten hours to go before the first visitors arrived, Chestnut House still lacked certain amenities. You could see daylight through the roof, there was only half a kitchen, and Richard hadn't even started installing the shower.

To cap it all, Jimmy Savile impersonator Richard was grumpy at the prospect of having to share his Tuscan paradise with strangers - even if income from holiday guests was going to finance his family's new lifestyle.

Happily, baggage belonging to the two visiting sisters went missing, giving the Turnbulls and their helpers an extra two hours' breathing space to put the finishing touches to the small house.

Despite all the hard work, the sisters' reaction was not good. They complained of spending a cold and sleepless night because they couldn't get the wood-burning stove to work, and the shower failed to provide hot water.

There was worse to come. The sisters went off to see the sights and failed to return by nightfall. The Turnbulls feared they'd never find their way back in the dark. They did, arriving back in the dead of night. Next morning, they announced their intention of leaving. After two nights, they told their hosts, they couldn't spend another night in "a glorified dolls' house".

Richard and Sarah preferred to call it "bijou rustic charm", but as far as their first guests were concerned, that was no compensation for the cold, an outdoor bathroom, temperamental stove, and precarious muddy road leading to the property.

It would have been interesting to have American interior designer Ann Maurice - five's House Doctor - on the case. Her no-nonsense approach in repackaging houses that won't sell would have been a godsend in helping them make Chestnut House a des-res.

Maurice, however, couldn't have done anything about the Turnbulls' chicken Daphne. She wasn't well and, despite Sarah's wrapping her in a blanket and administering TLC, faced the chop. Richard - "a big wuss", according to his wife - couldn't deliver the fatal blow, leaving handyman Andre to wield the axe.

Maurice could probably have struck Daphne down with one of the barbed comments she used to tell people their home decoration wasn't up to scratch. "A bit last decade" she suggested on entering the home of Graham and Sue Douglas. That was only the beginning. "There's not much of a personality here", "look at all this stuff", and "very dated" were some of her kinder remarks.

You could see her point looking round this four-bedroom house in the village of Radford Semele, near Leamington Spa. The ceilings were painted red and green (not the same ones, thankfully), Graham used the dining room as an office, and Sue gave music lessons in the living room.

The couple seemed to know what was wrong with their house, but had failed to put it right. "It comes down to time," pleaded Graham."I've heard that excuse before," snapped Maurice, bringing down her axe like a chicken-killer in Tuscany.