Sarah Beeny in the sitting room of her home in Somerset 

1. MAGICAL MEMORY MUGS

These are two mugs from Rise Hall, the Yorkshire stately home that we restored and eventually sold. We had about 20 mugs made, but these are the last two. They’re a happy reminder of a big adventure and 18 magical years spent bringing Rise Hall back from ruin.

I’m sad that we don’t own it now, but glad too that our lives have moved on. On the wall above the mugs is a first drawing my artist husband Graham [Swift] did of Stokeford, the new home we’ve built.

2. GRANNY'S GIFT

My granny Vera was very particular, and not long before she died, she rang and asked me forcefully to come to her house immediately. When I got there she said she wanted me to have this jester.

My grandparents owned clothing shops in London and had found the figure in one of the shops they took over. To me it represents enterprise from a generation of our family that has disappeared.

3. FAMILY TIME

This clock was painted by my son Raffey when he was about four. Within seven minutes of me putting it on a wall, Raffey had kicked it down with a football. I stuck it together with superglue, but it got smashed again by another football, so I’ve had it properly mended now.

4. ALL MY BOYS

Here I am at my wedding in 2002 with my father, retired architect Richard, now 83. My lovely, gentle mother Ann died of cancer when I was ten. I had a very happy childhood with my brother Diccon.

We lived in a cottage near Reading and tried to be self-sufficient, growing vegetables and keeping chickens, ducks and goats. The other picture is of my four sons [l-r], Raffey, now 13, Laurie, 12, Charlie, 15, and Billy, 17, who all love it here in Somerset.

5. WAITING ISN'T FOR ME

This book by Dr Seuss is a favourite of mine and I read it to my sons over and over again. I especially love The Waiting Place poem in it because it mirrors everything I think about life. I’m terribly impatient and must keep creating and exploring. It ends, ‘Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing.’

6. ANIMAL HOUSE

We haven’t got goats, sheep or chickens yet – just the bees in their hives, our kittens and our beloved dogs, mother cockapoo Maple [left] and her overly bouncy daughter Piccolo [right]. Piccolo gets far too over-excited and poor Maple looks at us in despair at her antics. I swear that if she could roll her eyes, she would.

As told to Yvonne Swann. Catch up with Sarah’s move in her TV series Sarah Beeny’s New Life In The Country, Tuesdays, 8pm, Channel 4.