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The whole of September 2021 consisted of just one housesit – and the disappointment of having one cancel on us! We also reached the anniversary of our first year of being ‘of no fixed abode’!

CHIPPENHAM

One of the things we are enjoying the most about housesitting is discovering new places that we have never visited before. When we are searching the listings for advertised sits we regularly have to google the name of the area first to find out where in the UK it actually is!

This was the case for September. We noticed a housesit advertised in ‘Chippenham‘. A quick google search revealed to us that this is a market town in Wiltshire, very near to the city of Bath

Our previous boat sit in Little Venice was within walking distance to Paddington train station. From here, the journey to Chippenham is just over an hour. Also, having friends living in this area that we had not seen for a while made Chippenham a perfect destination for our next housesit.

In addition to the location, the fact that it was a five-week sit made it really appealing. Long sits means fewer travelling days which is always a bonus in my book – I still find the travelling between sits really stressful. We applied and were delighted to be accepted.

THE HOUSESIT

This housesit was in a really lovely old Victorian house. The house was brim-full of antique furniture that the home hosts told us had all been passed down by generations of their family. Every piece seemed as if it had a story to tell.

The hidden gem of the house was an unexpected secret garden at the back of the house that was lovely to sit in during the unusually warm September afternoons. The garden was planted with all manner of fruit trees and plants including a really well-established grapevine and, much to our delight, a fig tree! Both of which were well laden with fruit.

The Pets

The pets in our care on this housesit were three cats. Gersemi, Hnoss and Sparkles.

Gersemi & Hnoss

These are two elderly sisters. Both are white and almost identical so the owner kindly gave Gersemi a collar to help us distinguish one from the other.

These cats were both lovely. They were lap cats that loved to sit with (or on) us and were always really inquisitive as to what we were doing. They loved attention, and If they were not getting enough they would give you a gentle tap on the arm with their paw as a reminder.

…and they slept – a lot!

Sparkles

Sparkles is totally different. He is a younger male cat and much bigger than the other two. He is relatively new to the family and came from a rescue centre. His history is vague but it seems as if he had had some abuse in his life. The consequence of this was that he was now an angry, semi-feral cat.

When we first met Sparkles, to be honest, we were a little afraid of him. If you were what he considered to be too near he would hiss and lunge forward as if he was going to attack. We felt really sorry for him but were also concerned that he may attack at any moment!

Occasionally, he would sit at a distance observing us. Our feeling was that he wanted to be involved with us but his past bad experiences meant that he had lost his trust in humans.

Slowly though, as the days went by and he got to know us better, he became more confident. We gave give him as much attention as possible whilst keeping a safe distance. We did not have much hope of gaining his trust in the few weeks that we were staying.

One day, however, a couple of weeks into the sit, out of the blue we had a breakthrough! One night, without warning, he came into the living room and just plonked himself in front of us, looking quite relaxed!. We couldn’t believe it! – until that point he had kept his distance at all times.

Somehow, we had turned a corner. He was still cautious but let us get close. As each day passed we got to know him better and his temperament calmed. You can imagine our delight, when the day before we were about to leave, after some gentle persuading, (and a delicious dreamie as his reward) he came to eat from my hand!

In five weeks, we had gone from being scared of him to him literally eating out of our hands. The feeling of accomplishment was amazing. Against all the odds we had gained a new feline friend!

OUT AND ABOUT

One of the advantages of longer stays in a housesit is that we have more time to visit surrounding areas. During this stay, we managed to squeeze in a few day trips.

Bath

Bath is a quick ten-minute train journey from Chippenham so there was no excuse not to visit. We have been before but not for many years so enjoyed a day walking the streets soaking up the atmosphere of this popular tourist city.

The city was busy and it was great to see it getting back on its feet after the last 18 months of Covid-induced hardship. The streets were bustling with activity and the shops and attractions seemed to be doing good business.

Frome

Frome – pronounced (Froome) is a town we had never visited previously. From Chippenham, it took us about an hour on the bus to get there. It is a really pretty market town, made up of streets filled with charming, mainly independent stores. The town has been named as one of the best places in Britain to live and it was easy to see why. With its artistic, bohemian, atmosphere it is definitely somewhere I would not mind living for a while. If you are ever in the area we highly recommended a visit here.

Lacock

Lacock village and Abbey is a must-see destination if you are anywhere in the vicinity. From our housesit in Chippenham, It was a ten-minute bus ride to get there.

In 1944, the whole Lacock Estate including the imposing thirteenth century Abbey was given to the National Trust who now own it and are responsible for the upkeep.

The whole village remains perfectly preserved and visiting it is like stepping back 200 years in time.

Lacock Abbey and village have featured many times in films and television productions including Harry Potter, Pride & Prejudice, Moll Flanders and Downton Abbey

MEETING FRIENDS

We have found one positive aspect of our nomadic lifestyle is that we often end up close to friends that distance normally has stopped us from seeing regularly. This happened to us twice in September.

Prue is a friend and fellow Airbnb host that I have known via an Airbnb hosts Facebook group for a couple of years but have only actually met in person once before. As she lives in Bristol it was our perfect opportunity to be able to meet up one day for a long-overdue catch-up.

We also managed to spend a lovely day in the company of Mark, John and Rod, good friends that live in the area that we don’t get to see anywhere near often enough!

OH NO – A CANCELLATION!

We had been looking forward to our next booked housesit after Chippenham. It was to be another long one – the whole of October staying in Brighton. This one came with the added bonus that the sit was to look after only a house – with no pets!

Housesits that do not have the responsibility of pets to care for are rarely advertised so we were delighted to be chosen for this one and were really looking forward to our month by the sea. Unfortunately, however, it was not to be.

In mid-September, we were contacted by the homeowner. She told us that her plans had changed which meant that we were no longer required. It was really disappointing but is one of the negative aspects of housesitting. As no cash changes hands between sitter or homeowner, there is no real consequence if either cancels. Luckily, we have learned not to book train tickets until very near our date so no real harm was done. It just means that we now need to find another one fairly pronto!

As I write this there is no news on a replacement – we have another week to do here in Chippenham so, if we don’t manage to find another housesit we will probably spend October in an Airbnb somewhere. We have literally no idea yet so watch this space!

I can understand why this way of life would not suit everyone but I still really like not knowing where we will be from one month to the next. The novelty of arriving at new accommodation so regularly I continue to find exciting.

This leads me seamlessly to our September milestone…

OUR SEPTEMBER 2021 MILESTONE

Unbelievably, September 4th marked our one year anniversary since we left Manchester to start this nomadic adventure!

On the whole, after our disastrous start, it has been great and we are already looking forward to 2022.

Our initial idea of living totally in Airbnb accommodation changed back in May when we discovered housesitting. Now, our plan for the foreseeable future is to live in a mixture of housesitting & Airbnb accommodation. We have no idea what that mix will be for the next year or where in the world we will be staying – only time will tell.

In the meantime, here in numbers, is a quick summary of our first year on the road to date…

WE HAVE SPENT 274 NIGHTS IN AIRBNB ACCOMMODATION

132 NIGHTS IN HOUSE SITTING ACCOMMODATION

Not bad for our first year. Roll on year two!