So What Have You Got... 50, 100, or 200GB?

Well, what do you know… over the last few months we’ve come across another fun aspect of this lifestyle. I suppose some people might consider it a problem and a pain, but I genuinely think it adds an interesting aspect to our daily routine - or at least it does at the moment since it usually only lasts a few days.

So what is it?

Well… believe it or not, we keep running out of internet!

Funnily enough, before we started house-sitting, it never occurred to me that there might be people out there in this big wide world who only had limited internet access - let alone none! But there are you know! Yes! Really! Still!

Therefore, to overcome the risk of us getting caught out and staying in a house with limited access, we actually made being online a requirement of any house we look after. We are, after all, Digital Nomads not Grey Nomads.

The crazy thing is we don’t really use up THAT much internet, or at least I didn’t think we did. Yes, we’re online everyday, but there’s no regular and huge uploading or downloading. Yet towards the end of many months we’re still finding ourselves having to get up during the starlit hours to use the off-peak allowance, or (oh darn!) having to go out to one of these many wonderful local cafes and buying a coffee whilst using their free wi-fi.

Of course, it also makes it harder for me to find reasons for putting off doing my actual writing, which gets so overlooked most of the time (and of course doesn’t need the internet).

So what are the drawbacks, you might ask? Well, no really major ones, in many ways it’s all part of the fun and unpredictability offered by this lifestyle. The main challenge it causes is simple really - I Skype my UK family less. After all, Skyping from a cafe really doesn’t work (even if it’s to Mum!) Does it?

But it does make me wonder… are we actually attracting people with lower internet access divided between peak/off peak times? Alternatively, is it possible that these are the main people looking for house-sitters? Or is it all purely a fluke that we end up together? Who knows? But with the changes in life and the growing popularity of Stan and Netflix, I’m pretty sure I’m not being naive in thinking that the number of small internet plans will be lessening…

(FYI, for those that are curious - I don’t think we’ve ever used more than 100GB of data in a month.)

Ring, Ring… Ring, Ring…

What are your thoughts, should we answer the house phones or not?

My mind keeps wavering on the topic. After all, we aren’t a secretarial service and friends usually know if their friends have gone away so won’t call, but (on the other hand) we are keeping an eye on a person’s house and what if we need to be given a message? Thankfully, so far, most of the houses we’ve stayed in have had answering machines, so there’s been no need to answer - just monitor.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t occasionally answered, most of the time it’s instinct after the jobs I’ve had throughout my life. But… would you believe… that just about every time I have picked up the receiver during the last twelve months (every time except twice that is) it’s been a sales call! What’s more, the person on the other end of the phone hasn’t been too happy to hear I’m a house sitter. In fact, some have got quite short tempered with me and just about all have hung up on me! Which only re-enforces the concept that I shouldn’t have answered in the first place.

Then there have also been the salespeople who’ve got quite shirty with me because I don’t give out the name of the homeowners or the date they are returning or other personal information. For some reason the faceless strangers don’t agree with my concept that they should know who it is that they are phoning!

I ask you… is that such a strange expectation?

Of course, it does make us somewhat difficult to get hold of because we don’t have a landline number to give out to people wanting to talk to us. It also concerns me, what if it’s the homeowners who are phoning to check that everything is fine, and that we haven’t run off with their fine china? Will they be concerned if nobody, continually, answers their calls home?

So many things to consider. In the meantime, I listen to the phone ringing knowing that if it’s somebody wanting to talk to me they’ll either leave me a message, or email, Skype, or Facebook me or simply call me on my mobile. But all the same… Should we answer the phone?