New Years

 January 2019

One would think New Years in London would be wonderful, but for us at least, it was nothing to write home about. Maybe it was the fact that we aren't the type of people to go clubbing or wild partying on New Years Eve - for me the ideal is camping in the wilderness, counting down on a wild and windswept beach at midnight. 

Perhaps it didn't help that the year before we had stayed in a wonderful cottage in the English countryside. It was compounded certainly by the fact that we had foolishly decided to go and watch the fireworks from by the river at a vantage point we had read about online. The problem was, so had half of London. Streets thronging with people, places cordoned off by police, it was a crowded, seething nightmare. And it turned out we had gone to the wrong bridge, thus affording us highly mediocre views of the fireworks. Thoroughly regretting our choices and wishing we had simply drunk prosecco in the living room, we made our way home back to Fulham and the cuddly cat. This wasn't an auspicious start to the year, and we probably should have taken it as an omen of not so great things to come - but more on that later.

The only real place of note we went to while at our housesit in Fulham was Richmond Park, one of London's royal parks, where deer have roamed since 1637 (I imagine for the King to hunt at his leisure). The deer are wild, and one shouldn't get too close, nevertheless we managed to spot a number of them chilling out.  

The park was made up of different sections, and we had good fun wandering different garden areas, including taking silly photos. 

Luckily we didn't fall in the icy water with all our posing!

It was only after our visit that I read ticks were common here, and to watch out due to Lyme disease. Ugh! Lucky I hadn't read it before our visit or I would have been wildly paranoid. 

Christmas in Fulham

 December 2018

Our last housesit was in Fulham, London, where we would be staying for Christmas. We were lucky enough to have found a place where the owners didn't mind me having my family to stay over Christmas, so we were all set for a lovely holiday. There was even a Christmas tree!

London over Christmas is a magical place (though it would have been more magical had it snowed!) The Christmas lights in Oxford Circus, the many Christmas Markets all around, the Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park - it was the latter we wandered around, finally stopping for drink by a roaring fire.

Ben and I had our own little pre-Christmas together, where we made our first roast Christmas ham, and exchanged small gifts.

Of course, it was nothing compared to the feast we made when my sibling family turned up! It was the first time Ben had met my oldest brother, and they soon developed a great Catan rivalry. 

It was a wonderful Christmas, family, food, wine, good company. I couldn't have been happier. And we made mulled wine of course! A true Winter Christmas. 

It was also the first time I had attempted to roast a turkey! I overdid it slightly, but it was delicious regardless. Gravy fixes anything!

Yannick and Necia brought their now infamous Christmas cake, based off my mum's recipe, and it was delicious as always.

Of course, it's not a family gathering unless the Catan board comes out! A more cosy Christmas couldn't have been had.

The neighbourhood was awesome too, ridiculously posh, it was lovely to walk past the grand houses and wonder at their price tags. It wasn't a long walk to the Thames either, and we would usually go on a morning walk along the river every day. Our reward for this was a playground with an epic swing halfway through where we could chill for a while.

Obligatory family photo! (Note the Catan game in the foreground, and the prosecco of course!)

December 2018: Housesitting in Spain

December 2018

Our next housesit was our best ever, in Spain looking after two cats for an English couple, Maz and George. We landed in Alicante, where they kindly picked us up, dropped us off at a supermarket to do a large shop to cover the next few weeks, and then drove us back to their house. We had been worried it would be awkward, but they were the kindest house-sitters we had ever met. They fed us delicious home-made lasagna and beers, and gave us a tour of their amazing villa. 

Out in the countryside, there was a village a half an hour walk away which had a tiny supermarket where we could pick up any extras we needed (a small range of fruit and veg, cheese and alcohol) and a bar. Aside from that, we were in the middle of no-where, and it was glorious. Although sadly too cold to use the pool, we did make good use of their bbq, and George showed us how to perfectly set the living room fire every time (where was that knowledge for our last housesit!)

The cats were friendly and chill, except that every morning when we opened our bedroom door, one of them would hiss at us from the dark (giving me a heart attack) aside from this, they were perfectly friendly!

They had an olive grove on their property, and had brined their own olives the year before, meaning they had numerous huge buckets of olives ready to be eaten - they said help yourself, and I must have eaten my weight in olives over the next few weeks! Luckily, they had two bikes they had offered us to use, so we cycled around the countryside in the mornings, exploring the arid landscape and working off the olives. It was glorious, aside from the often terrifying dogs. 

The most memorable dog occasion was early one morning when we had decided to go out for a walk, we reached the corner around the house, only to see in the pre-dawn light a huge black dog loping towards us, collarless and ownerless, no one in sight. 

It looked terrifying, and we bolted back to the house, where Ben, in true horror film fashion, couldn't get the key in the door to unlock it. Imagining the hound's teeth closing on my leg any second, I grabbed the key from him and opened the door, slamming it behind us in terror. It put a slight damper on our walks from then on, but happily we never saw the dog again. 

And did I mention the hot tub? The stars were incredible out there without city light pollution, and it became our habit every night to have a drink in the hot tub admiring the stars and listening to relaxing ambient music, before fleeing from the icy winter night to warm up by the fire. Heaven.

November 2018: Cambridge

 November 2018

Ben and I both wanted to see family before we headed off to Spain for three weeks for our next housesit, so we split up, he to Bristol, and I to Cambridge. I had only visited Cambridge once before, almost living there in fact when I took a barista job for all of a day before being offered a teaching job in Spain starting the following week and having to quit (but that's a story for another time). 

The last time I had been there, just before Christmas in 2014, had been rather dismal. Completely alone, and with no plan and no family in the country, I wandered around feeling rather sorry for myself, and was unable to even see any of the universities properly as they had all closed for the holidays. 

This time couldn't have been more different, and Cambridge is always somewhere I will hold rather dear. Not only is it the quintessential English town you might dream up from The Wind in the Willows or Narnia, but having someone awesome and practically local show me around was priceless. 

Playing the good tour guide, my brother first showed me around the adorable, somewhat hidden away St Peter's church.

 Charmingly, it is sometimes known as St Peter by the Castle, to distinguish it from another St. Peter's (though this one's name has now changed, so I suppose the cause for confusion is over). 

Dating back to the 12th century, apparently the church is now redundant (harsh Wikipedia). 

Taking full advantage of my brother's access, I was soon smugly jumping queues of tourists to pop inside beautiful buildings, starting with my brother's college, St. Johns. I was excited to learn this college was founded by Lady Margaret Beaufort in Tudor times - not because I knew who she was, but because of my love for french Beaufort cheese!

Cheese dreams aside, I was pretty excited for us to get access to climbing the chapel tower, accessed by an old door (like something straight out of Narnia, I was fangirling all over the place) and by climbing many (many, many) steps. The views were worth it!

 It was through my googling of this climb (considering I am writing this post over 2 years late, one can't remember everything) that I came across the interesting term 'night climbing'. Which was the sport of students in Cambridge and Oxford climbing walls to explore the rooftops, done at night as it was not well looked upon for some strange reason. 

A number of books on the subject have been published, dating back to 1895, however my favourite was titled 'The night climbers of Cambridge' by an undergraduate, published under the pseudonym 'Whipplesnaith'. Ahh England. 

The Bridge of Sighs was another port of call. Officially titled 'New Bridge' (stunningly original) when it was built in 1831 it soon became known as the Bridge of Sighs, in reference to the bridge in Venice (and here I was thinking it was because of stressed students - or longing tourists!) 

As a side note, I was very excited to learn we were also on the site of the medieval hospital of St John, which had in fact featured briefly in my thesis, as a comparative case study. Small world when studying medieval English hospitals I suppose!

One of my favourite places we visited was the old St. John's Library, no longer the main library used by students, this one was built in the 1600s and houses old and rare books - and boy was it cool!

I was also lucky enough to get to experience an Evensong at St John's chapel thanks to my awesome brother. Held traditionally around sunset, it was beautiful and just what I needed to work up an appetite. 

And speaking of dinner, I was lucky enough to get to go to a formal dinner in the hall, as my brother's guest. Formal clothing, the students in robes (IT WAS LIKE HOGWARTS) and a three course dinner with wine. It was one of my favourite parts of my visit, and did I mention it was like Hogwarts!?? Unfortunately the hall was beautifully dimly lit, which my phone camera didn't like at all, so photos were rather lacking - here's the least blurry one I took.  

Overall, it was a magical trip, full of the England from my childhood imaginings. I mean really with scenes like this, is it any wonder I half-expected Aslan to bound through the doorway?

November 2018: England in the Autumn

 November 2018

We hadn't managed to line up our house-sits perfectly (it's rather hard to do so) but my best friend Joy had kindly offered for us to stay whenever we liked in the gaps, so we popped back to England just in time for Guy Fawkes. 
In the UK, the 5th November is called bonfire night, and unlike our own New Zealand Guy Fawkes which consists of fireworks (often set off at the beach), in England they build a great bonfire and stick an effigy of Guy Fawkes known as the 'Guy' on top to burn (not bloodthirsty at all). 

The actual history behind the burning of the Guy is pretty interesting, from 1606 the 5th of November was remembered with a thanksgiving service (as a thank God he didn't blow up the King I suppose) - though over the years this event became mired by religious strife and  the night often culminated in violent mobs. This religious conflict led to the burning of an effigy of the pope on the bonfire, and indeed it became common to burn whatever political figure was disliked at the time. Thus it wasn't until much later that burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes became commonplace. 

 

Back to our own burning experience, we went to a public show to get a real feel for it, and was certainly impressed with the bonfire size! Not sure about the effigy on top though. 

Of course one must expect true English weather - wet rainy and muddy, Joy and I were well prepared with exciting gumboots (or should I say Wellies).

The bonfire once lit up was ridiculously hot from a surprising distance away, and with the fireworks going off overhead was incredibly pretty! Plus the night was freezing so it was a welcome warmth.

Brief trip over, we headed for our next house-sit, out in the countryside of England, located in Burton-Upon-Trent, not too far from Leicester. 

The owner was kind enough to pick us up to take us food shopping, as public transport was non-existent, and we of course did not have a car. 

Here we were looking after two cats, whilst the owner who specialized in working in conservation with orangutans was off in Borneo in the jungle somewhere (and mainly out of email and phone range). 

Luckily, after the last cat experience, this was the dream. Jose and Mika was the two chillest cats, who loved to hang out and purr. Mika (pictured above) was my favourite cat ever (and that record still stands). Look at all that cuteness!

The cottage was cosy as anything, with an adorable fireplace that we deeply struggled to light (never have I used so much lighter fluid or fire starters in my life) I think we managed to get it going properly exactly once, and that was because the owner had kindly left it all set up for us. 

Ok so we weren't great at fires... luckily I could practice my other skills, such as cooking! The place had a walk in pantry, where we had been told to help ourselves, so of course we did! Here I am, having attempted to make a loaf of bread in a dutch oven (it didn't taste as good as it looks). 

Unfortunately unlike many country cottages, this one didn't lead off onto cute country roads, instead the road just outside was a high speed 'main' road, with cars wizzing along and no footpaths - or even really a ditch - to walk by, making it much too dangerous to traverse by foot. 

We were therefore, rather stuck in place, aside from a morning meander up and down the very (very very) long driveway every morning, past the one sheep that always baa'd aggressively at us in surprisingly deep baritone. 

One more pic of Mika, because, how can you resist that face!? 

Housesitting in France: October 2018

 October 2018

Travelling on the cheap, my brother had introduced me to housesitting and we embraced this wholeheartedly. 
Our first housesit was looking after two cats in the french countryside, in Tournon-d'Agenais. This was Ben's first experience with cats, and probably didn't leave him with the best impression as we soon learned these were in fact, demonic cats. 
Aside from this, the house was quaint, the kitchen small, but we made some excellent red wine tomato lentil stews, and ate our weight in cheese.

Semi feral, one of the cats especially would attempt to attack the other when she tried to eat, and they had to be separated. Neither of them liked people (aside from their owner, whom they sat by her usual door meowing forlornly for days until they eventually decided she was never coming back and eschewed all people in great depression). 

This wouldn't have been too problematic, except we had been told to keep them inside each night, leading to a highly stressful game of tempt the sulky cats in with food and then lock them in for the night, or try calling their name in desperation into the empty night, knowing full well they would rather be friends with each other (hah!) than come when called. 

The swimming pool helped, though it was too cold to swim by the time we arrived, it was pretty to look at in the soft autumn sun.

The surrounding countryside however was simply outstanding, and we went for walks pretty much every day, sometimes in the morning when everything was shrouded in mist, other times in the evening, watching the sunset over hay bales, and the chateau over the hill. 

The morning mist was my favourite time of day, when buildings and trees loomed out of the grey quite suddenly, and there wasn't a soul around. We wandered through empty orchards and past derelict cottages without seeing a single person.

In saying that however, our neighbours were incredibly friendly. An English couple in one direction about a ten minute walk away, and an Australian couple just down the road, they made us feel incredibly welcome, and both had us over which was more than any other house sit I've experienced!

The elderly English couple had us over for dinner once, leading to us trying courgette soup - strangely one of the nicest things I have ever had. 

We were regaled by amusing stories from their youth, having traveled the world to many interesting places. They dropped enough comments for us to realize with dawning fascination that the cheerful, rather forgettable looking husband who had made us such lovely soup was most likely an ex-British spy. So interesting!!!

We managed a couple of day trips in the weeks we stayed, including to the town of Villefranche de Rouergue, which was incredibly special to me, as it had been my first place I workawayed, back at the age of 21 when I had no idea what I was doing at all (really, not much has changed)

We also went to the Chateau de Bonaguil, which has the interesting fact of being one of the very last great fortified castle to be constructed in France.

 Originally built in the 13th century, it was not until the 15th century that it was heavily fortified for an attack that never came - and was oddly done at a time when other castles were falling into ruin. Several sources mention the Bérenger de Roquefeuil - the owner in the 15th century chateau who put such fortification innovations in place - as a highly unpleasant man. 

However the only details I could find for this were from a questionable website mentioning how he tried to suspend a charter which had allowed the local peasants to not pay duties on small quantities of goods - this failed horribly and he was forced to pay a fine for trying to do so. 

In response to this, he apparently sulked and built a big castle. Good a response as any I suppose?

Interesting facts aside, my favourite moment was when Ben had his first snake experience (he jumped about a foot, it was glorious) 

Another day trip took us to the Abbaye de Beaulieu which was just gorgeous. 

My birthday also came around when we were staying at the housesit, and although it felt strange having no friends or family around, Ben made a brilliant effort with balloons and banners and a delicious home cooked three course lunch in the sunshine (and lots of cheese. He knows the way to a girl's heart). Did I mention the cheese?

And the apple and berry tart with icecream?

It was a wonderful lazy day, and watching the sun slowly set over the hills from the garden was the perfect end to the day.