We weren’t sure if we were going to continue our blog but I know there may be some waiting for updates.
So we left the southern area of West Sussex and partially settled ourselves into our room in our share house and then had to leave to do a house sit in Warboys which is near Cambridge. This sit was only for a week looking after two lovely fluffy cats, Buddy and Mini Moo Mouse. We loved our time here in a very small village with the two cats who were just adorable. Mouse is rather rotund and needs to diet but it is difficult since her owners work crazy shift hours and it is impossible to regulate her food. She still manages to jump up on top of their fence though and get up on most bench tops etc. She loved nothing more than to come and cuddle up on the bed in the night. Buddy was a little more reserved having been rescued obviously from someone who hit him as he was quite timid, but thankfully he is now in a loving home. He looks like Freddy’s cousin it is uncanny and quite strange as I look at him I expect him to act a little like Freddy and have to remind myself it isn’t him.
We didn’t have time to explore much as it was a bank holiday weekend when we were there so everything was closed and the roads were too busy to go very far.
After this sit we headed back to Sherington where our room was and we had a couple of days there before we had to go to our Gifford Park house sit. We went to have an explore and go to the shops in Milton Keynes only to my surprise to see that it was really huge and absolutely chaotic. After battling for 20mins to find a car park – even the furthest away we could get was full – we finally found one. At this point I was not feeling comfortable with where we were and was not liking the area we thought we would settle in. When you drive around there, all roads are either horizontal or vertical and there are roundabouts at every intersection. All housing and business etc is surrounded by greenery which is nice, however you have no idea at any time where you are or what is behind the greenery. It is a very strange area and not our cup of tea really. It may be nice in some of the little villages behind the greenery but there are many areas that are just dense apartment style living which looked ordinary and quite unkempt and there are many many more new ones being built.
We got to our next sit in Gifford Park looking after Sylvester who was a lovely English blue cat. The house was detached with lovely gardens but was in a really isolated area. This was the house we had to make a decision about with staying for 6 months. We weren’t comfortable with how isolated it was and to get to a supermarket it was a 20 minute drive. No walking down the road or a 5min drive to get some milk etc. There was a pub 10 mins walk away but it wasn’t very nice. During our stay there, there was a breakin a few doors down with the burglars getting over 50,000 pounds worth of jewellery and money. It made me feel quite unsafe in the area since I already had felt isolated. We then made the decision that we weren’t going to stay here. Nothing felt right and although the house was fine, the bed was far too old and uncomfortable to sleep on for 6 months and there was a lot of maintenance needing done to the place. It worried me that there would be problems especially when the upstairs shower started leaking through the ceiling onto downstairs furniture. We also had had no luck with jobs where the recruitment agencies were not even doing us the courtesy of getting back to us. After my job interview I never even got told whether I got the job or not which is just plain rude. To this day I was never phoned by the fellow I had dealt with, but I did hear via other means, only by asking, that I didn’t have it. It seemed we were battling with too many other people for jobs and the companies had their pick of people. We forget we are in our 50’s and in a lot of people’s minds that may be getting too old to employ. We are also new immigrants which I am sure also puts people off us, even if we are English speakers.
During our stay here we had friends stay with us for a few days. It was nice for them to get out of their campervan for a couple of days and it was nice to have company for a change. Scot and I had been together every day for 14 months with no time apart really so other company was definitely welcome. Whilst they were with us we visited Stratford upon Avon and Stow on the Wold which are lovely places. We had mostly great weather but did a bit of relaxing whilst we watched the squirrels stealing cherries off the tree outside the conservatory.
So now that we realised this place wasn’t for us, we had to make a decision about where we would go. Horsham was the place we had loved the most so far and we had felt really at home there. Then I got a message from the farm owners so I asked them if they still needed a sitter for Sept/Oct and if so maybe we could still do it. They were very pleased to have us back and said they would help with whatever we needed to help us get settled there which was so nice. It was quite a relief making the decision to go back down south as I hadn’t slept well for days and I felt quite ill not knowing which way to go. All we really wanted was to get ourselves settled and into a normal routine again. It is nice to travel but after a while you really crave being back in one place in a routine and having things kind of normal again.
Once the owner at Gifford Park came back we told her we wouldn’t be able to do the 6 month house sit as we were moving back down south. We had 2 other house sits in the north we had committed to which we weren’t going to let anyone down. After Gifford Park we had a few days in Sherington before we again headed back to Warboys to look after Buddy and Mouse. Prior to driving up there we had to go down to Horsham for one night as I had an interview with the RSPCA close to where we were going to move to. We stayed at a bnb close by rather than worry about the van which was still in storage at a close by nursery.
Buddy and Mouse were more comfortable with us this time we were back in Warboys. We also found time to visit Cambridge where they had a graduation day on that day, so the city was filled with students in robes. They have park and ride places all over the surrounding area so we parked up at St Ives and took the bus, which uses a dedicated busway purpose built so no cars can drive on it, into the city. Cambridge has lovely buildings mostly belonging to the university, but if you were looking for anything else there wasn’t much. We also went back into St Ives township on a Sunday to have a look and they just happened to have a bike show on so Scot was very pleased. It is a lovely town with some cool buildings and a river running through. On another day we went to Duxford Aerodrome which is an aircraft museum particularly with aeroplanes used in the wars. Scot saw a Catalina which was like what his father flew in the war. They had flights in a spitfire fighter plane which we thought would be great but on finding out that it cost £3000 for 30 mins flying we thought it best to give it a miss. We enjoyed a couple of drinks at the local pubs close by and a meal of local fish and chips.
We had told Wendy at the share house we would be leaving to go down south so we left Warboys and packed up our things in Sherington, got our van out of storage and a couple of days later headed back down to Horsham. We had found a farm near Horsham we would stay for a few days that had a shower and toilet for use. It had been raining before we arrived and I nearly got the van bogged trying to get it parked up. We stopped at the farm for 3 nights but found we had little or no internet access which wasn’t going to be good for us trying to apply for jobs so we up and moved to a small campsite in Slinfold just outside Horsham. Slinfold had recently been voted as one of the top villages in England and it is easy to see why as it is very quaint and the people we met are friendly. They had no facilities but did have a toilet dump and fresh water which was enough for us. We went back to washing hair outside in a bucket which is no biggie really. I had an iron so if I needed job interview clothes ironed then it was easy to do.
We enjoyed our stay at this site and met some lovely people whilst there. Most days were filled with looking on the internet and applying for jobs. We found that the recruiters were more on the ball here and did follow up and get back to you very quickly. I heard within 2 days that I had been pipped at the post for the RSPCA job which was a shame as it had seemed perfect for me but there is obviously something else out there I am supposed to get. We did a little tripping around whilst we were back down south. We went and met up with Jenny down in Worthing and tripped around the local area also seeing Arundel again. I had another job interview at Cats Protection Society which turned out to be an hours drive away which although I would have liked the job, the drive would have been awful so was quite thankful when they decided they wanted someone with programming skills which I am not interested in doing anyway.
Then we both got an interview for the same company – a campervan company which we thought would work, but the owner seemed to be so full of himself and was quite rude when he interviewed us together that we didn’t even bother following up with him. It wasn’t right for either of us. Scot got himself some work for a few days helping a fellow out with sanding and painting work which I think he found quite hard after so long off work. It has been a long time since his fingers have bled!
About a week into July Scot gets 2 interviews on the same day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. After both companies interviews he is wondering which one he should take if he gets offered them. About 6 that night he gets an offer for the first job which he ends up taking. He knows that the other company wants him to work for them as well but the job would end up frustrating him so I am glad he made the better choice. He will be Technical Executive for a company that sells damp proofing products. With his knowledge he will be able to learn these new products quite easily and sales will be a breeze for him. We are both really thrilled that he has a job, now it’s just me. We have to do our last house sit up in Northampton so he will start his job on the 1st of August. It is right in the heart of Horsham and only 10 minutes drive from “home” where ever that will actually be. We do have this dilemma of where we will live now but more about that later on. The next day I see a job in Horsham that has been advertised several times and it appears they can’t find anyone so I decide to phone them. I have an interview in no time scheduled for the next afternoon. So I complete the interview, we head back to the van and have to get ourselves packed up again to head away. The van goes into the carpark at the farm where they have allowed us to park it for a bit and the car is all packed up and we head first to Sherington to pick up some books I had ordered and Wendy had made us lunch which was really lovely. Then we left and arrived in Northampton.
We are looking after an elderly cat – Bruno – who is around 18/19 years old and has kidney disease. He is a lovely ginger boy who is quite frail but still manages most things quite well. We just have to make sure he has his medicine each day with his food. This is where we still are at the present time. We have been here for 10 days and have 7 more to go before we head down south permanently. On the day we arrive here I get a phone call to offer me the job I went for. It is quite funny as it is also in Horsham only 5 minutes from Scot which means we can drive to work together and home again and don’t need another car. Although both wages are quite low, we won’t have to spend the thousands of pounds a year travelling like most people do in this country, so a huge saving there. It is nothing for someone to spend the likes of up to £8,000 on train travel a year. The big plus is we will have hopefully low stress jobs with a good work/life balance and can spend time at the gym and pool for our health. The big plus is there is an awesome golf club and country club in Slinfold we looked out and to join is not much more than the local pool when you take in parking fees and includes gym, classes, sauna, pool, restaurant’s etc and also golf for 7 days a week so when the $$ come in we hope to join.
So whilst we have been here so far we have been to Foxton Locks where the canal boats go through a number of locks to get the boats up a hill. A very interesting place and the temps are starting to go right up. This particular day was high 20’s. We went to Rockingham castle which has lovely gardens and an interesting history. It is still lived in by the current generation of the family who has owned it for over 400 years. We went to Fawsley and then Banby which are cute country villages. The temperature was mid 30’s on this day which was too hot for me. It is not nice over here when it gets hot as no one is geared up for it. No one has air conditioning so if you go into a pub or a shop the heat is unbearable and you can’t stay long. All the beer is not refrigerated like in Australia so the beer is warm and the fridges don’t cope so anything coming out of a fridge is not cold either. The buses don’t have air con so are dreadful to travel in. When we spent the day in the city in Northampton we found that only that large stores have air con so they are the best place to stay shopping in. We had to do some shopping as now we are both starting work on 1 August we need work clothes as we have very few. It will be better buying them once we start to earn but we need to have a few to start. Luckily Scot’s few earned dollars doing a bit of painting will come in handy.
Yesterday we had lunch with the Warboys couple which was so lovely. We went to a little pub – the Snooty Fox out near Thrapston. A lovely lunch and great company. I feel like we have a few friends here now which is nice. On Tuesday we are meeting Wendy from the share house in Sherington for lunch at the near Castle Ashby which is supposed to have lovely gardens which at this time of the year are spectacular( photos to come).
Work starts on 7 days so the countdown is on….
