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We love all pets but truth be told, dogs are a lot more work than cats.

After caring for eight dogs in our last six house sits, we looked forward to August’s arrival.

It was not planned at all, but our tally of pets for this month was mainly cats with only one dog, and this dog we had sat for before so knew no surprises were waiting for us with him.

The only downside to the month was that we had three bookings confirmed.

Our ideal number is one or two per month. This gives us time to settle in our new surroundings.

Moving too often can be exhausting, we are not the spring chickens we used to be!

However, quite a while ago we had promised to return to Beaconsfield for a sit we had done previously. The dates for this were slap bang in the middle of the month meaning we had gaps on either side to fill.

August House Sit Number One

To start the month off we left Horsham and headed north to Bromley, a town in South East London.

The Home

The family here included two young children and it was very much a family home.

Large and comfortable, with more toys than Toys R Us scattered around the place!

The jewel in the crown here was the garden. Land is expensive in London which often equates to tiny gardens but this was definitely not the case here.

The Garden was huge and completely wrapped around the house. If we were scoring, this would be in the top three nicest gardens we have seen on our house-sitting travels.

It was made completely private with high hedges all around and was beautifully landscaped with lawns, flower beds, a vegetable plot and a large play area for the children.

Our favourite thing in the garden though, was the hammock.

We spent far too much time reading (Karyo) or sleeping (Colin) in it while making the most of the August sunshine.

The Pets

We had been asked to look after two cats here, Vinnie and Ruffus.

Both cats were very easy to care for and had a cat flap to allow them outside whenever they wished.

We were only here for a short time and as the cats kept themselves busy during the day, we had lots of free time to relax and explore the area.

The Area

The house was in a great location, on the top of a hill, just a ten-minute walk to the busy Bromley town centre.

An easy 15-minute walk down the hill took us to the train station.

Opposite the train station was the entrance to Beckenham Place Park.

This lovely Park is Lewisham’s largest green space and is huge (237 acres)

London is famous for having many parks.

However, the surprise of Beckenham Place Park is that it is relatively new and has only been here in its new format since 2019.

For over 100 years one of the busiest 18-hole public golf courses in the UK stood on this ground.

However, as years went by, the golf course was being used less and less so In 2016 the local authority decided to close it.

It was a controversial decision and everyone was convinced the land would be sold to developers.

There could be no denying this was prime London land, ideal for building new housing.

You can imagine the delight of the local community when it was announced that instead of selling off the land, it had been decided to restore the park to its former glory.

The new park is a fantastic achievement.

As well as huge areas of open grassed areas and ancient woodland walkways, there is also a wide range of facilities available, including football pitches, a tennis court, a sensory garden, and a food courtyard that hosts regular live entertainment events.

The woodlands in Beckenham Place Park are designated as Ancient Woodland. This means some of the trees are at least 400 years old.

In the centre of the park, stands the imposing and beautiful Beckenham Place Mansion.

The mansion gave the park its name and is now a grand venue that can be hired for private events. It is also a community centre and café serving visitors to the park drinks and snacks throughout the day.

In the park there is even a 283-metre-long, 45-metre-wide and up to 3.5-metre deep, public lake where swimming is not only allowed, it is encouraged.

Lifeguards are always on duty and regular outside swimming lessons are offered.

Aquatic plants absorb unwanted nutrients in the water and oxygen pumps keep the water healthy.

The icing on the cake is a man-made sandy beach area that slowly slopes into a shallow area of the lake, giving children and less confident swimmers easy access to the water.

A Suprise Meeting!

I have said before how small the world is for the house-sitting community and this was proved once again during our time in Bromley.

As many of you will know, we often meet other sitters on our travels, many who have travelled from all corners of the globe.

Back in July 2022, while we were housesitting in Brighton, an American lady named Amparo organised a sitter meeting in London which we attended.

It was the most well-attended meeting we have attended and we were delighted to meet many new house-sitters from all around the world.

The star of the show at that meeting was Amparo herself.

She is an inspirational, full-time sitter who travels alone. Since that meeting, thanks to the wonder of Facebook forums, we have continued to keep in touch.

Amparo is extremely well travelled so it is impossible to know where in the world she is at any specific time. The last we heard she was enjoying an extended sit in Egypt.

Imagine our surprise then, when we out of the blue, received a message from her.

She had heard on the pet sitter grapevine that we were in Bromley.

Suprise, Suprise – so was she!

It was unbelievable how, with a whole world to choose from, we had ended up on house-sits so close to each other.

Needless to say, we were delighted to meet again and spent a couple of hours catching up on our pet-sitting adventures over the last two years.

August House Sit Number Two

After Bromley, we headed to our second house sit of August – Beaconsfield.

We last visited Beaconsfield in April 2022 and since then the home hosts have kindly invited us back on a couple of occasions. Unfortunately, because our calendar fills up quickly, we have never been able to return.

This time though, we were given plenty of notice and as we enjoyed our time here so much on our last visit, we were happy to accept their request to return for a second time.

The Area

Beaconsfield is a town in Buckinghamshire, just west of London.

It is very well located. From Euston to Beaconsfield by train, even with two changes only takes about one hour in total.

The town has a population of 12,000 and consists of three areas. Old Beaconsfield, New Beaconsfield, and Holtspur.

Beaconsfield gets its name from the beech tree.

‘Bece’ is the old English name for a beech tree. For this reason, the town has adopted the beech tree as its emblem.

The pronunciation of Beaconsfield for many people to this day, remains as ‘Beckonsfield’.

The Home

Being within easy walking distance of the town centre and train station is a big bonus for this home.

The last time we stayed here we loved the house. It was large, modern and very comfortable. The owners both work in hospitality and it shows in their home which has a distinct ‘five-star’ hotel feel to it.

On this visit, amazingly, with a new, large living area extension and a new building in the garden that serves as an outdoor entertaining/dining area they have managed to improve an already perfect home!

The Pets

We knew the pets here from last time and were looking forward to meeting them all again.

There are three cats, Nea, Leo and Nala and one of my all-time favourite dogs, Pip.

I arrived at the house a day before Karyo as we overlapped a day with the previous sit.

The home host left for their holidays very early in the morning but left me a hidden key to let myself in.

We would normally be wary about entering a house with a dog when the home host was not there. After all, how does the dog know we are not burglars?

However, as I had grown a strong bond with Pip on our last visit, even though I had not seen him for two years, I was sure he would remember me.

Honestly, I was feeling excited at the prospect of meeting Pip again.

Who hasn’t seen those Facebook posts where a dog gets very excited as it meets its owner for the first time in years?

How wrong could I have been! When I went into the house I was gutted and a little concerned. He didn’t recognise me!

Thankfully he is not a big dog so I was not frightened, but as soon as he saw me his tail went down and he started to bark and growl – he was defending his territory.

I spent the next 15 minutes at the door, trying to get his confidence to let me pass.

Once I was in, I got a treat and let him see me put it on the floor.

Then I ignored him. From the corner of my eye, I saw him come for his treat and take it upstairs.

After about a few hours of me totally ignoring him, curiosity got the better of him and he came downstairs to see what was going on.

To cut a long story short, after a good sniff of my nether regions, the penny eventually dropped. He did remember me after all!

We were friends again.

Exactly the welcome I was hoping for – just four hours later than expected!

*Random Beaconsfield Fun Fact*

I am terrible at famous people spotting. We lived in Manchester city centre for many years. Mainly because there are TV studios in Manchester, it is not uncommon to see TV or film actors in the streets. However, I hardly ever saw anyone.

Chris Bisson, of Shameless/Coronation Street/Emmerdale fame, was our neighbour so I regularly bumped into him in the lift but that was about it.

So imagine my delight when out shopping in Beaconsfield High Street I found myself standing next to my favourite comedian, The very funny, and very dishy, Mr Russell Howard!

That’s about as far as the story goes. It turns out he lives in Beaconsfield. I did not want to morph into a groupie annoying him in the street for a photo, so you will have to take my word that it actually happened, but honestly, it did – and it made my day!

Our Second Sitter Meeting in August

While we were in Beaconsfield, Angela, one of the founder members of trusted housesitters contacted us.

She told us she was currently in London and had arranged a meeting with a couple of other house-sitters. She noticed we were not a million miles away and asked if we would like to join them.

Of course, we said yes and met them all one sunny Saturday in central London.

Normally these events happen in a local pub but on this occasion, we went upmarket. Angela took us by surprise by choosing the cafe inside the Royal Albert Hall as a meeting venue – and treated us all to lunch

Five sitters attended this time. Me and Karyo. Angela, from Scotland who we have met before, Plus two sitters we had not met before. Lynne, who is local to London, and Sue, the international sitter on this occasion, all the way from Australia.

Thank you, Angela. It was lovely to see you again.

If I had known you were paying, I’d have ordered a pudding. 😂

August House Sit Number Three

Our third and final house-sit for August was in Surbiton, southwest London.

The train station at Surbiton, with its imposing, tall-windowed frontage is a lovely welcome for visitors to the town.

It is said to be one of the finest surviving examples of an Art Deco railway station. 

A claim to fame of Surbiton station is that it appeared in the Harry Potter film ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’.

Look closely and you will recognise Surbiton station in the opening scenes of the film. When Harry is in a café reading the Daily Prophet about the Death Eater attack in London.

To be honest, The biggest surprise for me about Surbiton was that it is a real place!

I only previously knew it from the popular 1970s BBC sitcom ‘The Good Life’, starring Richard Briars and Felicity Kendall.

Until we were booked for this house-sit, I always thought Surbiton was a fictional town, created for the show. 😂

The Sit

This was a very short ‘filler’ sit, we had a few days gap before our first sit in September was due to start and the dates required here were perfect.

The home was a newish-built apartment in a good location, no more than twenty minutes walk to the train station and town centre which is always an important criterion for us when choosing our pet sits

The Pet

This was a music-loving family with classic record sleeves as pictures on the wall and a huge collection of vinyl records on show.

The cat who lived here was named ‘Freddie’, after Freddie Mercury. (even though she was a she!)

Freddie was a lovely jet-black indoor cat.

There was a small, outside balcony where she could go when supervised. We were happy with this, as the apartment was not massive so any outside space for her was a bonus.

However, it was a bit stressful too. When she was getting some fresh air on the balcony, the last thing we wanted was for her to do an escape bid on our watch.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen and, Freddie was extremely well-behaved, and proved to be a very easy cat to care for.

Out and About

Surbiton is in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, South-West London. It is in a great location, on the south bank of the River Thames, just east of Kingston-upon-Thames.

There was a pleasant one-hour walk from our house-sit, following the river Thames to Kingston and then cutting through Bushy Park to our final destination of Hampton Court Park, the home of Hampton Court Palace.

At over 1,000 acres, Bushy Park is the second-largest of London’s eight Royal Parks and a haven for wildlife. It is home to impressive 17th-century water gardens, woodland gardens and wild deer which roam freely around the park

Hampton Court Park follows on from Bushy Park and boarders the palace.

It is a walled deer park and a herd of 700 Fallow deer wander freely grazing on the grassland of this 750-acre park.

Walking through the park towards Hampton Court Palace, runs The Longford River, also known as ‘The Long Water’.  

This is a beautiful stretch of water commissioned in 1660 by King Charles II to bring fresh water to Hampton Court Palace

The king then dedicated The Long Water, with its double-row walkway of lime trees which lead to the palace, as a wedding present to his bride-to-be, Catherine of Braganza.

Hampton Court Palace is the end destination of this walk but as we arrived late in the day, and tickets to go in were thirty quid each we decided to leave that for another day.

Henry VIII lived in Hampton Court from 1529 and Anne Boleyn had her own private lodgings here.

However, no royals have lived here since George II in 1737 when he decided he no longer wanted it to be a royal palace.

Hampton Court Palace has been owned by the reigning monarch since Tudor times, hence the current owner is King Charles III. However, nowadays it is cared for by the independent charity, Historic Royal Palaces.

Where Next?

We are staying in London throughout September.

After saying our three house sits in August was a lot, we managed to squeeze four into September!

Including one floating on the River Thames, but more on that next time.

Until then, as always, Thank you for taking the time to read our monthly updates – we really appreciate it.

Hugs, Colin & Karyo x