Until quite recently Thalia Temmerman’s knowledge of east Kent was limited to a school trip to Folkestone in the eighties.
The impression wasn’t favourable.
Then friends moved to nearby Hythe and Thalia and her husband Fabrice took another look around the once-dismal but now regenerated seaside town with its arty vibe.
“I couldn’t believe how nice it was,” she said.
That visit sowed the seed of an idea.
In the summer Thalia, who had lived in north London all her life, and Fabrice, who had been in the capital for almost three decades, said goodbye to their rented two bedroom cottage in Muswell Hill and moved into a four bedroom townhouse in Lydden, between Canterbury and Dover.
“If you’d have said to me ten years ago that I would move out into the sticks and be sitting looking out of my window at fields I would have laughed,” said Thalia.
“Now I can’t believe we didn’t do it sooner. The quality of life is so much better.”
When they were in their twenties and thirties Thalia, now 48, and Fabrice, 51, loved living in London – they took full advantage of the culture and the nightlife, built careers, and loved the vibe.
Soho was their home from home.
But, pre-pandemic, Thalia began to work from home and her relationship with her city began to change.
“You could fit our old house into our new house more than twice over”
“We were not using London in the same way,” she said. “Slowly but surely we were going out less.”
The couple’s Muswell Hill cottage was rented but similar properties in the area sell for around £850,000 – far beyond their means.
In Lydden their newly built four bedroom house at the Lydden Hills development cost £660,000.
“You could fit our old house into our new house more than twice over,” said Thalia.
“It has got amazing views, a lovely garden, it was a no-brainer.”
The couple, plus their four-year-old Hungarian Vizsla, Maia, left London in August, although Thalia, who manages software development teams, still makes the hour-long train journey back to the capital weekly for work and to catch up with friends.
Fabrice, head of client services for a creative agency, and commutes from Dover twice a week.
When in Kent the couple are busy exploring local cities and towns, discovering new haunts.
“Things are easier now,” said Thalia. “If we want to find a nice pub to have some lunch, there are a handful in the immediate vicinity," she added.
"In London, it’s a hassle to go anywhere; it’s either too expensive or too busy and everywhere seems very frenetic, whereas here, it seems there is more freedom. It’s a very different pace of life, psychologically.”
