Electric driving in Farnham Royal

 Saturday 29/10/22

On Sunday we handed the dogs over to the next house sitter and drove to Farnham Royal, just managing to outrun a thunderstorm on the way.  We stayed at this house for a weekend in July so we were able to settle in very quickly.

Goldie - every day is a bad hair day.

The owners are extremely generous and, as they know we don't go out a lot in Bokkie when on sits, lent us their electric car to get around.  I went for a test drive with the owner as it is quite daunting at first but it has quickly turned into my favourite drive of all time - apart from Bokkie, obviously 😉

The Honda e - We are big fans!

This particular model has every electronic gizmo one can think of but it is quiet, nippy as you like and turns on a dime.  You don't have to worry about gear changes but, if driven on regeneration mode, you almost never need to use the brakes, you just speed up or slow down using the accelerator pedal - it is fantastic.

Poppy

Cuddle time

Maggie, an elderly Boxer and Mae, a young French Bulldog

Beau

Bibi

Goldie and Poppy

We're lucky that Charmaine could pop in for the weekend

The animals we're looking after are an absolute treat, the dogs are such fun and the furries are great for cuddles.  The only problem we've had was all the fireworks being set off for the Diwali celebrations - the dogs are terrified and it really reinforced to us what an effect humans have on animals.  We sat and cuddled them for hours during the worst fireworks, to keep them calm.   Unfortunately we still have Guy Fawkes and New Year ahead of us.

The dogs have their own sofa

Practicing our fireworks drills...

We've just had our passports returned to us with nice shiny 1-year French visas printed in them which is really good news for us.  This has been the year of house-sitting and next year will definitely be more travelling.

Bonus video:-  stroking a furry animal is so relaxing!

Time travel on the way to Meadle

 Friday 21/10/22

We've relocated to Meadle for a few days, helping out some owners who weren't able to get sitters for their travels.  We sat here before in June but this time have Archie, Beau's brother, joining us with Bella and Beau.  It is just until Sunday when we will move on to another repeat sit in Farnham Royal.

Back in Buckinghamshire with Beau, Bella and Archie

We left Thorncombe before the sun came up as we knew we had to get off the single track roads before people started moving about too much.  It was a wise decision as we had to drive more than half an hour along extremely narrow roads and would have had real problems if there had been more traffic.

Some years ago we had seen an antiques show on TV which was filmed in Milestones museum, a reproduction of historic buildings in Basingstoke, and as it was along our way, we decided to visit.

The museum was fascinating and very atmospheric, with amazing displays of items and houses through the Britain in the pre-and post-war period; a lovely way to pass a few hours.  

Later that afternoon we headed on to the house sit, unfortunately hitting High Wycombe during rush-hour.  That definitely brought back some memories of sitting in traffic twice every work day, and was a stark reminder of our working life.  

Hard at work.

Back in the day when things were repaired if they broke.

Bokkie's great, great grandfather!

Bokkie's grandmother 😉

Inside the Romani camper.

It was lovely to see all the vintage vehicles in such good condition

The advantage of doing repeat sits is that we know the animals and the house so  are able to settle into a routine quicker.  We're certainly enjoying the Aga stove much more in the colder weather than we did in the heat of June. 

Charmaine was kind enough to come and look after the hounds yesterday so that we could hightail it into London for our visa appointments.  It wasn't a fun experience but we're hoping, if successful, it will make future European travel a lot easier.  Frustrating that it will have cost us £2,500 in total, just to get us the freedom for a year that we already used to enjoy before Brexit!!!

Minnie and Bertie near Thorncombe

 Sunday 09/10/22

Not a bad view from the garden

We've settled into a lovely barn conversion in a rural corner of Dorset, right on the the borders of Somerset and Devon.  

We're far from the nearest main road and, although we love the peace and quiet, getting here with Bokkie was a challenging drive down very narrow, winding roads with the constant threat of tractors appearing out of the fields.  It is a beautiful part of the country though,  and the views from our walks are fantastic.

The dogs have a reputation for chasing sheep so they tow human anchors.

Minnie, a big softie.

Bertie, missing his owner.  Luckily dogs have short memories!

This is a two-week sit, looking after two Greek-rescue dogs and four ex-battery hens while the owner takes a river cruise on the Danube.  

We've settled into an easy routine of cooking, walking the dogs, me doing a few Bokkie jobs (always needed), and Toni making copious cups of coffee for the builders who are finishing a guest cottage on the property.

The roads aren't exactly Bokkie-friendly.

It feels like we're back in Portugal with the local shop in a converted village house.

When we leave here we will need to tackle the dreaded rural road back towards London for the rest of our winter sits.  

It's nice to be out of Bokkie and back in a house for a break, especially with the colder weather and some of the storms we've been having - and really good to have these lovely animals for some company!

The mornings and evenings are magical in the garden - we hear the owls hooting every night.

Portugal trip 2022 - A wrap up

 Monday 03/10/22

As usual, I'm just doing a wrap up of the trip as a record for ourselves as well as information for anyone who is interested.

We loved out time in the Portuguese summer so much last year that, when we were invited back to look after the five horses and rural property again this year, we jumped at the opportunity.  We were able to get the dates to work with our Brexit-shuffle and spent 80 days in Spain, Portugal and France, 10 days shorter than our allowed 90 days - because we want to be back in the EU early in January so couldn't stay beyond 1 October.

We took the overnight ferry from Plymouth to Santander on the way down and returned via Caen to Portsmouth.  Our preferred crossing is definitely still Eurotunnel but in this case it made more sense to cut out some of the driving and travel by sea.

Unexpected summery afternoon at Charford
In spite of the sunshine, we can already feel our tans fading away!

We drove a total of 3,870km (2,418 miles) and Bokkie consumed around 424 litres of diesel (she also took a tankful of petrol and needed a stomach-pump) at a cost of £630.  We stayed 16 nights on campsites at a cost of £260 and spent around £644 on groceries.

We did a lot of planned maintenance on Bokkie while on the sit (and some unplanned) and are hugely relieved that we seem to have beaten the intermittent limping fault, she performed fantastically on the way back.  I will still do a permanent fix by replacing all six cables just to make sure don't have a recurrence any time soon as it makes for much more relaxed driving when she behaves herself.

We've got five winter house-sits lined up between now and New Year, and then we will head off to Brittany again.  We're applying for long term French visas which, if granted, will give us greater freedom to remain in the EU for a year and therefore expand our travel options in Europe.  

Wood Farm, Charmouth

 Saturday 01/10/22

As expected, we got very little sleep with Bokkie being pelted with rain and rocked by the wind, so we were a little bleary-eyed when the alarm went off before 0600.

We're viewing the Channel from the other side tonight.

Luckily it was only a 15 minute drive to the ferry terminal and it wasn't too long and we were aboard.  The ferry was quite empty which was nice but the crossing was quite rough.  We definitely view ferry crossing as a necessary evil but do not enjoy them at all.  

The tablets we took along with ginger bites and a ginger drink managed to stave off the seasickness but we still found the trip quite stressful & tiring.

Bokkie having a well-deserved rest in a campsite.

The UK roads are as busy as always and we were relieved to get to the campsite after a long day.  We stayed in this campsite in May 2021 and have come here again as our next house sit is quite close by.  

It's an early night tonight!