Colin and Marian

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More information about this house sitter

We are just retired and would like to travel, visit new places and stay a while to appreciate the feel of the place. My wife and I have four children and six lovely grandchildren living in various parts of Australia. When the children were young, we had dogs and cats, and chickens. Living on a farm, we now have cattle and sheep, looked after by others while we are away. So we can now take time to travel and learn about other ways of life.

I speak workable French (once taught maths in France), passing Spanish and a little Italian. My wife speaks passing French. These will improve dramatically with just a little use. My wife teaches English as a second/foreign language.
We have dual nationality, Australian and British/EU, after moving to Australia 30 years ago.

I used to be an academic; my last position was as a Senior Research Fellow at ANU and then I ran my own companies for 12 years. My wife is an art historian but she has taught English for the last 13 years. I play piano and so, if you have a piano, that would be a fantastic bonus.

We both have clean Australian and British driving licences and could provide “Working with Children” and “Police” checks. Personal references can also be provided.

Why we want to house sit

We are interested in house sitting as a way of staying for a reasonable period of time in a relaxed environment (not a hotel), so that we can really get to know the locale rather than just be a tourist popping in to see the major tourist cities and then moving on. We would like to get to know the way of life in the area and hence are interested in house sits at least two weeks long, up to a few months.

What we bring to the assignment / relevant experience

In the past, we have had border collies that are great fun and never tire of walking (!) and cats of no special breed, one of which now lives with one of our daughters. We had family pets for some 20 years and thus have lots of experience looking after pets, including house cats as well as outside cats. When we stop travelling, we will certainly have pets again. We have almost always had chooks (chickens).

We love gardening and have currently restored the garden from an acre of thistles to a decent garden in which we have planted varieties that are suitable to the soil and climate here. Unlike most of Australia, we have frosts, being nearly 1000m above sea level. We have experience with all types of mechanical gardening equipment from ride-on mowers, to rotavators and blowers.

We have experience looking after pools from small plunge pools to large swimming pools, and both salt water and chlorine.

I ran an internet service provider and communications company and am familiar dealing with technologies of all kinds.

We live some 80kms from the nearest town with shops, and our nearest neighbour is some 5km away. So we are used to living out in the bush and are very resourceful and self-reliant. We have restored our current house, which meant doing gyprock, plastering, filling, painting, carpentry, carpet laying, guttering and quite a bit of plumbing. We essentially had to do these ourselves as professionals do not like driving the three hours it takes to drive here and back to town. We also cut all our own wood for heating.

Having said that, we would also enjoy living in a city for a while, again to get the feel of the local communities. My wife and I, during our careers, have both lived in cities (London, Edinburgh, Canberra, Sydney) and we greatly enjoy the café life and visiting art galleries and churches.

This year, we had a great house sit looking after a French chateau near Niort in the Deux Sevres region of France. The owners wanted us to look after their dog, Victor, a Weinerarmer, who was absolutely great, and the owners lent us one of their cars. We had a fantastic time but will miss Victor. A reference from the owners is available on this web site.

We have owned properties and rented properties and understand the identification and attachment people have with both their properties and their pets. We have had and can show you a 100% perfect rental record and would be very happy to maintain regular contact while you are away and send you photos of your pets having a great time with us.

Being so far out in the bush, we have a poor quality landline phone connection at home but no mobile reception. However, we do have a good satellite internet connection on which we can make Skype video calls most of the time. Email is the most reliable way to reach us.

If you would like to know more, we would be very pleased to hear from you. Read more...