Mykola Voytiv, Nataliya Churikova and their two children were fast asleep when a missile slammed into a neighbouring apartment block.
It was just after 4am in Kyiv on Thursday, February 24 - the night the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.
Mrs Churikova, 44, went to the window and saw the skies on fire. Her 38-year-old husband said it was like the apocalypse.
The next door apartment block was in ruins. The fate of its inhabitants, unknown.
On the long drive back from the west of the country the night before, as they returned home from Mrs Churikova's 76-year-old mother Hanna's funeral, the roads had seemed eerily quiet.
All they saw as they neared Kyiv was a long convoy of official cars speeding west with a police escort.
Mr Voytiv's mobile rang the morning after, as the world awoke to the horror of what was unfolding in the city and elsewhere.
"It was my father," he said. "He said do you know what's happening? The war's started. That's what's happening."
He dressed, got in the car and went to look for petrol. Garages were either closed or besieged by queues as he drove around Kyiv before finally finding fuel.
Mr Voytiv found fuel and drove home to pick up his wife, son Roman, then 13, and two-year-old daughter Miriam.
They threw a few clothes and belongings in their Renault, before they hit the road for the west of the country, giving a friend's student son a lift away from immediate danger.
"It's an emotional feeling when you leave your home and you don't know if you'll ever be able to go back," said Mrs Churikova.
"You don't know if this life you've worked for all this time will still exist, or whether it's been blown to pieces."
After moving around different areas of western Ukraine, as conflict intensified to the east and south of the country, they left the country in early June for Poland.
After completing their paperwork, they set off for Norfolk. A sponsor Mrs Churikova knew from her time as a student studying English in London 20 years earlier had offered them a place to stay in Old Hunstanton.
As the resort filled with summer tourists, the couple took stock as relief they had all made it out alive was overtaken by day-to-day realities like getting Roman into Smithdon High School and finding Miriam a place at Glebe House Nursery.
Mr Voytiv worked as a consultant in the energy industry. He hosted a TV show about it and wrote for industry Ukrainian and International journals.
Mrs Churikova worked as a journalist, editor and producer. She also writes children's stories and fairy tales.
While they try to find work in their respective fields, the couple are collecting donations to buy relief to send home.
Mr Voytiv has raised £5,500 to buy a Nissan X-Trail 4x4, fill it with medical supplies and send it to the Ukrainian army.
He now hopes to buy a Land Rover Defender for the country's defenders via a justgiving page.
Roman has started producing painted T-shirts. A stall at the Old Hunstanton Flower Festival led to a flood of orders he is now working on.
An English friend took the family to the Sandringham Flower Show, where the Duchess of Cornwall came over to greet the family after Roman's embroidered shirt and Ukrainian flag caught her eye.
“She asked me how we are settling here, if people nice to us”, said Mrs Churikova. "She shook my hand and I just said: 'Thank you very much for supporting Ukraine. People are really nice to us and we are well."
The couple are philosophical about the future, as the war grinds on in their homeland.
"We really need to meet people, to go out, it help to go through all that pain, as news from Ukraine isn't good," said Mrs Churikova .
"Our warriors are saving not only Ukraine but the whole of Europe from Russian invasion. It is so stressful and painful that it's hard to cope.
"We are nation with dignity who knew what freedom means. But it is so hard to accept that in the 21st century, the second biggest European country has to fight for their freedom."
"We had a lot of plans, we had perspective," said Mr Voytiv. "Then all of a sudden everything was finished, everything was broken and we have to start out life from the beginning again. But we are grateful to God, that we have met so many good people in Norfolk, who have given us help and support”.
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