Animal loving teacher

More information about this house sitter

I am a very well-travelled, former English language university lecturer, writer and now professional housesitter!

As writing involves spending lots of time by myself at home, knowing me, I'll more likely be seeking to distract myself by paying lots of extra attention to the pets in my care, cleaning the house and gardening!! (Hence it's taking a very long time to write my book :( )

I own an apartment in Mosman Park, West Australia, close to the beach and Swan River, but it is cosy on a higher floor, and I can't keep pets. So I see every advantage to continue petsitting now and again, and possibly in summer I could even Airbnb my place to help cover my outgoings as a retiree.

Some background history regarding my housesitting: although I had done some housesitting previously from time to time mainly in Perth, I fully utilised housesitting in 2015 while finishing a Master's degree at the Australian National University in Canberra, and I've continued off and on from then in Australia and overseas.

After completing my degree, I went abroad and had a wonderful time housesitting in Spain and the UK, where I taught at Cambridge University over the summer. I returned to Australia and then went to Nauru Island in the South Pacific to teach refugees until Dec, 2016.

Until the end of Oct 2018, I was teaching on a casual basis in Canberra at ANU College and teaching refugees and new migrants with Navitas and housesitting, so I could go on writing while managing on minimal pay.

I returned to my home base of Perth at the end of 2018, housesitting at one home with Tiger the cat for a year , and then other sits, with periods in my own homes due to various Covid restrictions. Finally, I was able to sell one of my second property and clear my mortgage towards the end of 2021, which helped a great deal considering the Covid situation.

I’ve been back in the northern hemisphere since May 2022 and so far have often housesat in London, and some fabulous housesits in Hampshire for family, North Devon, the Cotswolds x 2, Surrey x 2, France x 3 (Dompierre-sur-Charente, nr Toulouse x 2 and Paris), Morocco (Fez), Spain (Guajar Alto for 2nd time, Antequera, and the Costa Blanca),Turkey, (Iznik and Istanbul), the Isle of Man, Scotland and Ireland.

Now I'm returning home to Perth and am more than happy at the prospect!

Altogether, I’ve become quite addicted to housesitting one way or the other. I still love experiencing living in different places, and most importantly, being able to have the company of lots of lovely and loving pets. Plus, I always hope housesits in varied, beautiful and interesting locations will help feed my inspiration to write. Read more...