Housesitting Horizons #1
This is the first post in a series of blogs I’m going to write to keep you more up to date with our housesitting lifestyle!
So we’re currently doing a housesit in the Andalucía region of Spain, looking after a gorgeous (and tiny) sausage dog and two cats (both bigger than said sausage dog). The weather is constantly sunny with blue skies, but the heat is quite stifling and something we’re still getting used to - it’s 35 degrees today and we’re pretty much hunkered down inside with the fan constantly whirring in the background. Housesitting can sometimes seem very glamorous when viewed through the eyes of social media updates but in reality it is a lot of hard work. For us, that hard work is outweighed by the incredible benefits that this lifestyle provides - but remember it’s all about balance! You can’t have the life you want without a little graft and getting your hands dirty. This housesit is our 17th, which sounds like a lot, and we’ve only been doing this just over a year. We still love the lifestyle and the freedom it provides us with.
The low down…
This part of Spain currently feels very foreign to me; no-one in town speaks English, and we don’t speak any Spanish… “Hablas Ingles?” has been the extend of my conversations here so far, and is met with a resounding “No” every time. The area has a real desert-western-cowboy feel to it, with men on horseback wearing panama hats and trees bare of leaves and shedding their bark. Are we in Spain or Mexico?!
Before starting this housesit the homeowner let us stay in their ‘holiday home’ for a few days, where we made the most of the pool to cool off, walked across their acres of land each day and spend the evening soaking up our first Andalucian sunsets. Dreamy 😍
Although it is really nice to be back in the sun again, it is very tiring being in such extreme heat; we’re trying to get into the swing of siestas, but all we’ve managed to do so far is give ourselves insomnia.
For some reason, vegetables don’t seem to feature on any tapas menu’s here, so as a vegetarian I’m really struggling to eat out at all.
We’ve got 5.5 more weeks here so we’re really excited about finding our feet in the area and getting to know this region well - wish us luck!
The pets, as always, make the house a home. Sausage dog has become my shadow and the two cats are providing several laughs a day with their hilarious characters.
Oh, and I tried driving on the right hand side for the first time yesterday, with Tom in the passenger seat clinging to his door like he was about to jump out, telling me in a strangled voice that I was “Too close on his side” every few seconds, and choking out a smile and a “That was really good” once I’d parked and turned the engine off.
So that’s all I have to update you on today, keep an eye on the website for more Housesitting Horizons coming soon…
