We have already been at our Brighton house sit for almost six weeks.
We have just over four more weeks to go, all of August and the first week of September.
We had not anticipated doing a second house sit in August, but, as has become usual for us, trying to foresee where we will be staying for more than a week or two in advance is nearly impossible!
Meeting Friends
It is always nice to see friends whenever our paths cross, so, having heard our good friends from Manchester, Michael and Simon, were visiting their friends in London at the beginning of August, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to meet up.
We arranged to meet near the South Bank and enjoyed a nice lunch followed by a lovely sunny afternoon stroll along the Thames, accompanied by their dogs, Luca and Freddy.
As always, when we meet with these guys, we had a good gossip and a good laugh.
We couldn’t have wished for a better way to start the month.
August House Sit Number One – Brighton
When we were originally asked to care for this home, back in June 2022, we had no idea it was to become our most visited home.
This is the sixth time we have been, and we are loving it this time as much as we did the other five!
And why wouldn’t we? We have always loved Brighton.
Many years ago, we considered moving here permanently and actually visited once as a ‘recky’ to get a feel for the area.
In the end, we conceded that the time wasn’t quite right.
We would both have had to find new jobs, and the price of housing at the time was out of our reach.
It probably still is!
However, our love for Brighton remained and having been able to spend so much time here over the last five years has been a dream come true for us both.
As a bonus, for those who don’t know, this house sit is, as it says on the can, just a house to care for. No pets.
Except that is, for Penelope.
Penelope is a cat who comes to visit daily. No one knows where she lives, and we don’t feed her, but for reasons only known to her, she likes to spend a lot of time here.
The Home
It is a large and comfortable house, with a lovely secluded back garden.
Inside, it is filled with art and an eclectic collection of items the homeowner has amassed throughout her life.
The lady who owns this house is very well-travelled. She has photographs of herself all over the world, including non-touristy places, including North Korea!
She travels regularly, and for long periods of time, which is why we are invited to stay so often.
In her absence, we give her peace of mind knowing that her home and its belongings are being well cared for.
The Area
When you think of Brighton, its pier, ‘The Lanes’ shopping area, or its pebbly beach will probably spring to mind.
However, just north of the city centre is Preston Park.
Confusingly, Preston Park is also the name of the train station on the edge of Preston Park.
Even more confusingly, in the centre of Preston Park (the area) and a short walk from Preston Park (the train station) is Preston Park (the park).
Brighton’s first and largest urban park.
This is the area we are staying in, and the park is such a gem with so much always going on inside it, that it can be difficult to want to venture any further!
Preston Park – The Park
The origins of the park date back centuries, having once formed part of the grounds of Preston Manor, a large Edwardian house that still stands at the edge of the park.
Preston Manor is now open to the public as a museum of the Edwardian era.
The sprawling 63 acres of land were purchased by the town in the late 19th century and opened as a public park in 1884.
Flowing through the area, and beneath Preston Park, there is an underground watercourse called The Wellesbourne. It is also known as ‘Brighton’s lost river’.
This underground river helps to keep the park green.
The choice of activities in the park can be mind-boggling!
For the active, there are tennis courts, bowling greens, football pitches, basketball courts, an open gym, a running track, and a velodrome, which opened in 1887, making it the oldest working velodrome in the world with its original layout!
If you are a lover of gardens, there is a beautiful rose garden, a 16th-century walled garden, and just across the road, one of the largest municipal rock gardens in Britain (created in 1936).
For History lovers tucked at the southern end of Preston Park, is St Peter’s Church, a medieval flint building with rare 13th-century paintings on its walls.
Standing within the park is the clock tower.
The red-brick and terracotta tower dates from 1892. It is a focal point of the park, decorated with flower motifs, columns, and a dolphin-shaped weather vane.
For those wanting to sit and relax, there are two cafes within Preston Park.
The Rotunda Cafe Bar and the Chalet Café.
The Rotunda is the home of many local community groups and even hosts regular evening comedy nights. Be quick, though, tickets always sell out!
As if all that wasn’t enough. Most weekends, Preston Park is the go-to destination for pop-up theatre productions, an open-air cinema, a circus, a funfair, or any one of a multitude of other events which take place every year.
As it’s August, Preston Park’s biggest event of the year took place during our stay.
🏳️🌈 Brighton Pride 🏳️🌈
Every August, Brighton Pride transforms the city into a kaleidoscope of colour, music, and fun, and this year was no exception.
Over the weekend of Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd of August 2025, Brighton welcomed around 300,000 visitors for its annual LGBTQ+ 48-hour-long party.
Each year, there is a theme, and this year, the theme was ‘Ravishing Rage‘, a nod to the fact that the original purpose of Pride is protest.
Hopefully, this is not completely lost amongst the younger attendees.
There is more to Brighton Pride than glitter and glamour. It blends the fun and frivolity with a strong, continued commitment to equality within the city.
Whether you come for the party, the activism, or both, Brighton Pride 2025 is always a weekend to remember.
This year, the sun was shining and, as always, the parade was a great spectacle as it meandered through the city, starting at Hove Lawns and ending two and a bit hours later at its final destination – Preston Park.
Brighton is considered by many to be the LGBTQ+ capital of the UK, and its Pride events always attract the biggest stars.
The headliner this year was Mariah Carey.
Other big names providing a weekend of non-stop entertainment included Sister Sledge, Fatboy Slim, The Sugababes, Will Young, Natalie Imbruglia, and Andy Bell of Erasure.
However, there was some controversy this year.
The usual street party in Kemptown, Brighton’s main gay area, was moved to the seafront.
Officially, it was said this was for safety reasons, as the streets in Kemptown were getting too crammed and a larger, wider area was needed to ensure the safety of the partygoers.
The local businesses in Kemptown were furious, and I can see their point.
Pride is by far their biggest weekend of the year, and taking the crowds away must have cost them a fortune in lost revenue.
The park itself also had its fair share of criticism.
On Saturday, the entrance system had changed from previous years.
Usually, there are entrances all around the edge of the park, but this year, someone had the not-so-bright idea of having all eight entrances directly next to each other.
There were no barriers to create a fair queuing system towards each entrance.
This resulted in fifty thousand people being funnelled in the general direction of all the entrances, and none being able to aim for any specific one.
It was chaotic and scary!
Thankfully, there was no serious incident, but I think the organisers knew they had messed up big time.
It could have gone horribly wrong. It’s not as if they weren’t expecting that number of people, Pride has been an annual event in Brighton for over 50 years!
The good news. Once people managed to get into the park, the vibe changed and a good time was had by all.
On Sunday, more spaced-out entrances had been created, and with fewer attendees, the system worked much better.
I hope lessons have been learned, and Brighton Pride 2026 will be managed much better.
August House Sit Number Two – Barnham
We hadn’t anticipated doing a second house sit during August, but the lady whose home we were looking after in Brighton contacted us to say she would be coming home for four days as she had some things to do.
We know this lady well, but four days is quite a long time to share the home with her, so we decided to see if we could find another house sit to cover the dates.
As it turned out, the dates we needed covered the final Bank Holiday weekend of August, meaning there were a plethora of pet owners looking for sitters.
We didn’t want to travel too far, and only wanted to cover this specific four-night getaway before heading back to our commitment in Brighton.
Luckily for us, we spotted exactly the house sit we were looking for.
It was located in the small village of Barnham.
The Location
From Brighton, it was a direct, 45-minute train journey to Barnham, which is located along the coast, to the west of Brighton, five miles north of Bognor Regis.
The village has a small high street and one pub to serve the local community.
Having its own railway station means it is well-connected to surrounding areas, with easy access to Bognor Regis, London Victoria, Brighton, Littlehampton, Chichester, Portsmouth, Southampton and the West Country.
Much of the area surrounding the village is used for industrial glasshouse agriculture. Many huge, commercial greenhouses can be seen around the outskirts of the village, taking advantage of the mild and sunny climate in this part of West Sussex.
The Home
The home we stayed in was along a quiet country lane, making it very quiet and peaceful.
As a bonus for us, our stay coincided with the time of the year when wild blackberries are in abundance. The lane outside the home offered rich pickings!
The owners designed and built their home themselves, and have created a very special, beautiful, unique eco-home.
During the building of the house, they were approached by the makers of the television programme ‘Grand Designs’ who wanted to follow the build process, but the TV company had a two-year completion deadline for filming.
The owners knew they would never be able to complete within that time scale so they declined.
The build eventually took them a gruelling ten years to complete.
The end result is a very spacious, unique, and award-winning home which has been featured in numerous magazines.
One of the homeowners is a very talented artist, and many examples of her own work hang on the walls.
The garden is large, well-designed, and contains many fruit trees, which were all heavy with fruit.
There is also a vegetable plot where numerous different vegetables are growing.
The owners are very proud of their home, and love to share it with others.
They do this by offering rooms on a bed-and-breakfast basis.
They also host pop-up restaurant evenings and art gallery events.
More about this amazing home can be found here
The Pets
We had two cats to care for during our stay. Max and Saffy.
They had very different personalities, but both were easy to look after.
Max is a young and very active cat.
He was very friendly and playful and loved human company.
Saffy was the polar opposite!
She is a much older cat and was really timid.
Usually, nervous cats become less timid as our stay progresses, but unfortunately, four days just wasn’t long enough for Saffy.
We were sad not to have been able to gain her trust, and she continues to keep her distance throughout our stay.
We loved this short, unexpected house sit and would love to return sometime in the future.
For now, though, it was time, once again, for us to catch the train back to Brighton.
We have a few more days to go before we complete our mammoth ten-week stay.
Brighton has been beyond brilliant, but we are now itching to move on again.
Where Next?
For September, we have two house sits booked.
Richmond, and Worcester.
More on that next time.
Until then, as always, thanks for taking the time to read our monthly house and pet sitting adventure update.
Hugs, Colin & Karyo xx
