THEIR names may be Dan and Becs, but this Leitrim couple are as far removed from their spoilt, south Dublin TV namesakes as can possibly be. They do, however, bear striking similarities to another well-known TV couple: Tom and Barbara Good from the 1970s sitcom The Good Life.

They're Dan and Rebecca Hillman, and they moved to Leitrim from England six years ago, and are now living out their dream of a sustainable lifestyle which involves all sorts of charming activities, such as bee-keeping, herb-growing, felting and making wooden toys.

Dan is from Cornwall, and he previously worked as a secondary school teacher of woodwork, metalwork, design and electronics, a position that he found to be quite stressful. Rebecca (whose maiden name was Allen) is from Glasnevin, but went to university in Plymouth, where she studied environmental science and marine science.

The pair met in 1998 through mutual friends at a surfing weekend in Perranporth in Cornwall, and the chemistry between them ignited on the way home from the beach one evening, where they had been lying on the sand, watching shooting stars.

Rebecca grabbed Dan's hand to help her up a rocky incline, and when they got to the top, he didn't let go. And just before they reached the campsite, he stopped and kissed her. She came home convinced she had met the man of her dreams, and was devastated when two weeks passed and she hadn't heard from him.

"I had been seeing someone else on a fairly casual basis prior to meeting Becs, and wanted to extricate myself cleanly from the other relationship," explains Dan, who had found Rebecca to be very attractive, strong and funny.

"I was also stressed to the hilt with my first teaching job, and, to be honest, had very little energy for anything apart from trying to do my job well."

Rebecca decided to take the initiative and invited Dan out to dinner, and it all went so well, that Dan then took her to a workshop to learn how to walk over a 20-foot-long bed of hot coals!

While they emerged unscathed from the experience, the flames of passion were clearly burning brightly, as Dan moved into Rebecca's house shortly afterwards.

The move to Ireland was precipitated by Rebecca's dad David's death in 2000, following a short illness.

"A couple of days after Dad died, Dan said that he didn't want to leave it too long before we had children of our own," says Rebecca. "Marriage didn't seem that important to us at that time, so deciding to have children was our way of saying that we both wanted to stay together forever."

It took a year to conceive Aoife, who is now six, and she was followed by Muireann, four. It was a couple of years ago, when Rebecca's mother Suzannah became terminally ill, that the pair decided to get married, as it was an occasion she had looked forward to for a while.

"The wedding was in the registry office in Carrick-on-

Shannon, and Mum was thrilled to be there," says Rebecca, adding that although the plan was to have a wedding picnic in the grounds of their new house, inclement weather meant that it was celebrated indoors.

It is clear that Dan and Rebecca are totally committed to one another, and when they encountered a rough patch last year, they sensibly decided to embark on a course of relationship counselling.

"Dan is tall dark, handsome and caring," says Rebecca, "but like many men, he had difficulty expressing when something was wrong with him. He'd go quiet instead, and I'd get annoyed at the way he was reacting, so it was a vicious circle and we were at loggerheads. It began when I was so intensely involved with my mum's illness, that I was sidelining Dan in some ways. Through counselling, we were able to turn it around and understand one another better, and now we're a strong team again.

"I think it's important not to paint a picture of us living in a little paradise down here," she adds, "because even when you're totally in love, as we are, relationships still need work."

Dan and Rebecca had originally bought a house in Leitrim to be near to Rebecca's mother, who had moved from Dublin to Longford. They also wanted to be close enough to the sea, and found Leitrim to be affordable. Dan worked as a joiner/carpenter initially, and Rebecca stayed at home to mind baby Aoife.

They subsequently moved to their current dream home, Sallygardens, which cost €155,000 for the house and 13 acres with a lake frontage.

The profit from their previous properties allowed them to be mortgage-free, so they decided that they both wanted to work at home in Sallygardens, living a life where they could reduce their outgoings and provide for themselves.

As Dan loved carpentry, he started making wooden children's toys, mainly charmingly colourful hobby horses, which he sells to customers as far away as Singapore and Australia through his website www.hobbyhorsetoys.com

Rebecca was always a keen felt-maker, and she began teaching felt courses, and looking after the couple's fascinating online blog, which beautifully describes the ups and downs and adventures of their chosen lifestyle. With a menagerie of goats, pigs, chickens, rabbits, cats, dogs and bees to contend with, Rebecca describes with searing honesty how, for example, she felt about rearing their pigs and getting to know them, and the mixed feelings involved when the time came to slaughter them. Or the fascinating buzz of bee- keeping, which yields honey, beeswax and endless hours of entertainment.

So many people had questions about how to go about what they were doing, that the pair started running ad hoc workshops and courses about their work, details of which are on their website.

"We have very few expenses," says Dan, "and those we have are mainly for things we can't avoid, like diesel for the car, insurances, toilet rolls etc. Becs and I are in each other's company all day long, working side-by-side, and I can't imagine being able to do that with very many people. It's a very special thing really."

www.sallygardens. typepad.com

- Andrea Smith