Friday, June 23, 2017

Just Waiting For Us...


It had to happen sooner or later… two weeks ago we got our first cancellation - four weeks in August.

Now while this might not have been a big deal to many other house-sitters - those that have somewhere else to live - for us no booking can mean nowhere to live. So it can be a little bit of a concern. It hasn’t as yet (thankfully), and hopefully never will, but we all knew that was a real risk when we took up house-sitting and opted to sell our house.

So one day shortly after the cancellation, there I was, sitting with my mug of coffee, staring at the house-sitting website we’re listed with, thinking the chances of a replacement sit were highly unlikely. After all, it’s one thing to find somewhere for August, but something totally different to find something to match our exact free days.

Still, guess what? There I was scanning the screen, when my eyes came to rest on an ad for a house-sitter needed for the first half of the month - starting on exactly the right day. What’s more the house was in the same same suburb we were currently in, and - if I figured things correctly - from the description given, the house was probably within a stone’s throw of where I was currently sitting, if not even one of the houses we passed whilst walking our current dog.

I sipped my coffee for a quiet moment. I’d only just been saying how much I liked living in this area, and here I was thinking of organising to come back and stay longer. My only concern was that I thought I'd seen the ad before. If I had that would mean it was probably a little old, which meant that others must have applied for the sit, which in turn meant that it was probably filled and the ad just not taken off the site. Still, considering it was the perfect starting date and just across the main road, it seemed worth emailing an application just in case. After all, there was really nothing to loose…

Imagine my surprise when minutes later I received an expression of interest back! It only took another five minutes before we’d arranged a time to pop around for a visit that afternoon.

Apparently, there had been other enquiries, but we fitted the bill better!

So much to our delight we almost instantly rebooked the first part of our gap in August, leaving us with only a week and a bit to book - not that I could see anything that fitted as I kept on scanning the websites. Not that I had to find anything there as it turns out.

Why not?

Because a couple we previously sat for took it upon themselves to tell their friends that we were free, so they should make the most of it and go on holiday! Let’s face it, if there’s an easier way of getting a house-sit than looking on the website, it’s looking on the internet and simply seeing a message saying that a couple wanted to book us. Not only that but their home is just down the road from another one we’re doing… and there was me concerned we wouldn’t find anything to cover the gap.

Thanks everyone.