Our Second HouseSit near Broxburn, Scotland

Skye, our temporary puppy
Skye, our temporary puppy

On Sunday we settled in to our second house sit as our billets left for a holiday in Sherwood Forest, Nottingham.  Yes, the home of Robin Hood is a real place!  Well thank goodness for a housesit, the timing was needed as both Janet and I have been sick.  Mine only lasted a few days as a bad cold/flu bug but as soon as we settled in to our second place Janet got hit hard. She’s been in bed since so we’ve just been laying low and enjoying our temporary home.  Luckily we were fine on moving days as I don’t know what we’d do if we had to travel while being sick.  We had anticipated getting ill at some point but not so early on, hopefully we’ve got that done and over with now. If Janet’s not better tomorrow we might need to make a trip to the doctor.

Our home is rural and has incredible views of the Scottish countryside from every window. The house has some amazing antique finishes dating a ways back las our previous housesit also had.  This one has wrought iron spindles in the railing, there is a large, clawed bathtub, the spout is a giant bronze goldfish like a piece of artwork and attached is a shower thats a bit of Victorian engineering.  I hope the owners don’t mind me showing it off a bit but I’ve attached a Youtube video below so everyone can experience our living in Scotland.

The old barns
The old barns

It’s been rainy everyday but today the sun finally came out and I went for a bit of a walk with Skye, the adorable Labadoodle were looking after while her family is away. We’ve had lots of time to watch Scottish TV and just chill, sightseeing will have to wait until we feel a bit better.  We’re getting what we wanted though, to just live like the locals doing everyday things like going to the grocery store, or the pharmacy. We’re trying to enjoy what we have now as after this we’ll be in Airbnb’s for the next 4 months. We missed out on some other housesit opportunities as we needlessly filled our schedule for the Italian consulate but we are starting to apply for some in February and hope to secure a few more to help with our budget.  We just had an email from the owners of a Trullo in Puglia, Italy that we had previously applied for, the housesitters they picked had to cancel and they wanted us to come.  It would be an experience to stay in a Trullo but unfortunately we already filled up that time period, oh well something fabulous will come up.

It still feels weird though, not quite like a holiday.  It feels like we’ve moved away but somewhere not that foreign, I think starting with back to back housesits has eased us into this experience as on the weekend we’ll then start a serious of more touristy moves.  We’re heading by train to Pitlochry, a touristy town that sounds a bit like Canmore for a three day stay, then we’ll pickup a rental car in Perth and head out for a tour of the highlands and Isle of Skye. I’m looking forward to it and we should have lots to blog about. Stay tuned!

 

2 Comments

  • Anonymous

    October 19, 2016 at 2:04 pm Reply

    Wow, beautiful! Loved the video, miss you tons. Get better. Xo

    • Mark

      October 20, 2016 at 2:55 am Reply

      Thanks Anonymous! Miss you too, I quess?

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