About Us

We first met at school when we were just 15 years old. Life took us in very different directions, and we lost touch for the next 13 years.

Those years were, for both of us, fairly chaotic ones - and ultimately shaped much of what came next. It’s a story we explore in much more detail in ORIGINS ~ The Backstory.

When our paths crossed again in 2004, in our late twenties, everything began to change. By then, one of us had already started making some pretty drastic changes in life, and finding each other again became the catalyst for us both to leave our old lives behind. In many ways, that chance reunion gave us the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start again - together.

And we really were starting from scratch.

We had very little, but we had plenty of determination. Over the years that followed there were numerous jobs, money-making schemes, house moves and ideas as we slowly built a life together. Eventually, we found ourselves living in a static mobile home on a friend’s farm, while the two of us built up a successful landscaping business from nothing.

Then, quite by chance, we heard about a little house for sale in rural France.

It cost just £8,000.

It was one of those opportunities that seemed far too good to ignore. We worked hard, saved the money and bought it - initially with no grand plan to completely change our lives.

But that little house happened to sit within a largely abandoned hamlet.

Within a year, one house had somehow become an entire collection of cottages, barns and outbuildings, and a slightly mad idea had begun to take shape.

What if we left the life we’d worked so hard to build in England and started all over again - this time in France?

So that’s exactly what we did.

Looking back, perhaps starting again has always been part of our story. We certainly never imagined that our journey would eventually be followed by people all over the world, first through television and now through our YouTube channel.

There have been plenty of wrong turns, disasters and moments when we’ve wondered what on earth we’re doing - but also more laughter, friendships and unforgettable experiences than we could ever have imagined.

And somehow, all these years later, the two 15-year-olds who first met at school are still muddling through it together.

Welcome to our world.

Yip & Paul x