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We have something to celebrate!

September marks five years since we embarked on our nomadic living adventure.

It’s hard to believe five years have gone by since that day in September 2020 when we sold all our belongings, headed to the airport, clutching our one-way ticket to Greece.

Then we weren’t allowed on the flight because I didn’t fill in the COVID forms correctly 😂

Thinking back, it was a shaky start to our new adventure, but I’m glad it didn’t put us off. The past five years have been amazing.

By sheer coincidence, our two house sits this month, in Richmond and Worcester, are our 99th and the big 100th house sits! 🎉

Our ten-week stay in Brighton had started at the end of June, covered the whole of July and August, and crept into the start of this month.

We loved our stay there, but by the time it was time to leave, honestly, we were itching to move on again.

After living this nomadic lifestyle for five years, ten weeks in one place felt like a very long time!

September House Sit Number One – Richmond

For our first house sit in September, we left Brighton and headed north to Richmond.

This was our second visit to this home. We were last here in October last year.

We loved it then, and were delighted to be invited back.

The Home

As we had been here before, there were no surprises on our arrival.

The house is a huge, five-bedroom detached property in the very nice leafy location of Richmond in London

The kitchen is at the back of the house, and has doors that open up onto a large, well-kept garden.

As you can imagine, inside, the home is really spacious.

Top to bottom, it is spotlessly clean and was a really lovely place for us to call home for a couple of weeks.

The Pet

Tizzy is a cocker spaniel.

She is almost 12 years old and a joy to spend time with.

Being a spaniel, she needs plenty of exercise. She seems to have slowed down a bit in the year since we last saw her (haven’t we all?), but she still has bursts of youthful energy when out on her walks.

Luckily for her, and for us, she has the gigantic Richmond Park as a next-door neighbour.

Tizzy is great off her leash, which means the park is ideal for her to run off any amount of energy she can muster.

The Location

Finding the perfect house sit is the holy grail of the petsitting community.

Over the years, we have stayed in many amazing properties, yet none have been perfect. Maybe we are being picky, but there is always something which would cause us to drop a point if we had a scoring system in place.

Hand on heart, we love this home, the homeowner is very welcoming, and we love Tizzy, but on our imaginary score board, it still only gets a 99/100

Unfortunately, as always, there is one negative to the location of this home.

It is an issue the home shares with other homes locally, and in many of the neighbouring affluent areas.

Heathrow Airport!

The problem is, they are all beneath the flightpath into Heathrow Airport, the busiest airport in Europe.

From 6 am to 11 pm every day, approximately 1300 aeroplanes arrive or leave Heathrow – That’s a lot of engine noise!

I am told that if you live here permanently, you get used to the noise of the aeroplane motorway above.

The planes over Richmond are so low in the sky that you can easily read the writing on them.

As visitors, you can’t help wondering why anyone would choose to spend millions of pounds on a house with the sound of plane engines constantly ringing in your ears.

Richmond Park

On a more positive note. As I mentioned before, the jewel in the crown of living in this area is the magnificent Richmond Park.

Living next to Richmond Park gives an unusual mix of small-town convenience and nature’s tranquillity.

As one of the city’s largest Royal Parks it is a haven of ancient woodlands, wide-open grasslands, and free-roaming deer.

You don’t have to walk far before spotting either the stationary horns of a majestic singular deer or a whole herd resting amongst the trees.

The first thing that immediately strikes you is the sheer size of the park.

Despite being within the boundaries of one of the world’s busiest capital cities, Richmond Park feels distinctly rural.

Our mornings often started with taking Tizzy for an early walk.

At that time of the morning, the mist would still be hanging heavily over the trees, hiding flocks of green parakeets that would be welcoming another beautiful day with their not-so-beautiful squawking!

I loved these early morning walks in the park.

The clean air and slow pace give the feeling of being alone, just me and Tizzy, in the wilderness.

The truth, though, quickly shatters my imagination as Richmond Park is alive 24 hours a day.

No matter how early we arrived, a myriad of cyclists, runners, walkers, photographers, and general early risers had beaten us to it!

Richmond itself, along with nearby areas such as Kingston and East Sheen, surrounds the nature-filled park with their distinctly village-like atmosphere.

Independent cafés, riverside pubs, and boutique shops line the streets, and the River Thames, which flows just beyond the park, provides opportunities for rowing, paddleboarding, fishing, or simply walking the scenic towpath towards Petersham Meadows or Teddington Lock.

Living in an area of London like this doesn’t come cheap. Property prices in Richmond and its surrounding neighbourhoods are among the highest in London, probably partly due to the park’s proximity.

However, those who can afford it are very lucky indeed (if you can ignore the plane noise!) What a treat it is to have Richmond Park and all it has to offer on your doorstep.

September House Sit Number Two – Worcester

Our second house sit in September reminded us of how varied our nomadic house-sitting lifestyle is.

This, of course, is a positive thing.

It keeps things interesting and, when asked, ‘Variety’ is always at the top of our ‘best things about being a housesitter’ list

In Richmond, we were staying in a huge detached property, looking after a dog.

In Worcester, we will be staying in a small apartment, this time looking after a cat.

The Home

As much as we had loved staying in the big detached house, the truth is, there are only two of us and, lovely as it is, we don’t really need so much space.

This apartment was a perfect size for two people to live comfortably.

It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and an open-plan kitchen/living area.

The apartment was spotlessly clean and, because of its size, was very easy to keep that way!

Its main selling point, however, was its location.

The Location

The apartment had an amazing location.

For a start, it was right next to the River Severn.

When I say ‘next to’, I mean literally riverside. The view from our living room window consisted of narrow boats, rowing boats, and an assortment of water-loving birdlife.

As if our Riverside location wasn’t enough, the main city centre of Worcester was no more than a fifteen-minute walk from our front door.

Location, Location, Location!

The Pet

We had one lovely, elderly cat to care for here. His name was Dallas.

Dallas was very easy to care for. Most of his time was spent sleeping or sitting in the window watching the world go by.

Worcester

This was our first visit to Worcester, and we really enjoyed our time there.

On arrival, our total knowledge of the city consisted of Worcestershire Sauce, which was invented here in the 19th century and Royal Worcester pottery.

Unfortunately, the original factory closed, and the ‘Royal Worcester’ brand was sold in 2009. The pottery is still manufactured, but no longer in Worcester.

Now for the good news – the purchaser of the Royal Worcester brand was Portmeirion Pottery. This company is based in Stoke-on-Trent (my home town!), meaning much of Royal Worcester pottery production remains in the UK.

The city of Worcester has a long history. There are nods of this all over the city, but it is particularly evident in the popular central shopping street, ‘Friar Street’.

The wonky Tudor houses (now shops, museums and restaurants) that line Friar Street date from the late 16th and 17th centuries.

Worcester Cathedral dominates the city skyline. It dates back to 1084 and is often called one of the most beautiful cathedrals in England. Visitors can climb up the tower for panoramic views of the River Severn and the surrounding countryside.

It was good to see that the city centre seemed to be thriving. There were very few empty shops, and the streets are always bustling with prospective customers seven days a week.

When you have had enough of the noise and chaos of the city centre, the River Severn runs through the centre of the city, so it is never far away, and is a great place to chill and relax.

With scenic walking paths, picnic spots, riverside cafes, and more swans than you are ever likely to see in one place ever again, this really is the perfect city centre location for a calming riverside walk.

The reason there are so many swans in this area is because in the 1980s the city council, in partnership with the Cathedral, designated this part of the River Severn as a swan sanctuary.

There had been a worrying national decline in the swan population caused mainly by poisonous lead, which fishermen were using in their angling weights.

To solve this problem, fishing was banned along a long stretch of the river here to make it a safer area for the swans.

It was a simple idea which worked, and the swan population increased significantly.

Of course, the swans are free to come and go as they please; there are no barriers to them, yet they somehow know this remains a safe place, and they continue to congregate here in huge numbers.

They are supported by the Swan Food Project, who provide nutritious food pellets and corn to locals and visitors who then feed the swans, making sure there is always sufficient amounts of food for them all.

Exercise

I have been asked a couple of times recently whether or not we are continuing to keep up our exercise routine as we travel around.

The answer is, (mostly) yes. 🏋🏻‍♂️🏋🏻‍♂️

If our stay in one area is less than a month, then joining a gym is difficult athough we do try our best.

However, even when we can’t find a gym, we have no excuse for giving up on exercise altogether, and always manage to find somewhere for a road run.

We discovered that one loop of the section of the River Severn outside our apartment in Worcester was a pleasant 6k run.

Meeting Other Sitters

As regular readers will know, we often meet other house sitters when our paths cross as we travel around.

This month, we were delighted to meet up with Sheryl. She is a very experienced house sitter who lives quite close to Worcester and came to spend a day with us.

We had lunch, and then, as the sun was shining on the day of her visit, we enjoyed a walk along the riverside

This wasn’t the first time we had crossed paths with Sheryl. We have met a few times, including when we were on a house sit in Christchurch, New Zealand, in December 2022, by sheer coincidence, Sheryl was also house sitting in the area (What’s the chance?!).

When we left Manchester in 2020, never in a million years would we have thought that just two years later, we would be spending Christmas Day with a new friend in New Zealand!

Anything else?

I’m glad you asked….Yes, there is!

We are very excited to announce that we have started our own YouTube channel!

We have called it ‘The House hoppers’, which we thought describes our lifestyle perfectly 😂

We had thought of starting a YouTube channel when we first left Manchester five years ago, but our zero knowledge about filming, editing, and just about anything connected to having a YouTube channel was sufficient to put us off any attempt of trying to create a channel of our own.

However, one night, after a glass (or was it two?) of cheap Lidl wine, the idea came up in conversation again, and we decided to give it a go.

As I write this, we already have six videos published and one in the bag, ready to go.

On the whole, so far. the whole process has been fun.

Hard work, time-consuming, stressful, anxiety-inducing, and a steep learning curve.

But great fun! 🤣

Thanks to the power of the internet, we seem to have managed to get the hang of the basics and, if I can say so myself, the videos we have published so far aren’t too bad.

Granted, Steven Spielberg won’t be quaking in his boots about the new kids on the block, but considering a few weeks ago, we didn’t know how to get a video off our camera and onto our laptop, it’s safe to say we are pleased with how it is going so far.

Please do take a look.

If you like what you see and would like to support us, please subscribe (it costs you nothing). We would love to have you on board.

It would also help us grow the channel if you could ‘like’ and comment on our videos, which the YouTube algorithm seems to like.

You can view the two YouTube Posts we made in Worcester here and here.

We are aiming to release one post each week and I have created a new page on this website where I intend to post all the videos we release.

The new page, with all our YouTube posts to date, can be seen here

Wish us luck!

Where Next?

In October, we have two house sits booked.

We will be going to Horsham and Cheltenham.

We’ll also be attending a wedding🤵🏻🤵🏻 – but more on that next month.

Until then, as always, thanks for taking the time to read our monthly house and pet sitting adventure update.

Hugs, Colin & Karyo xx