October started with a long anticipated trip and proceeded in stop start fashion when it came to completing the energy efficiency work. I am finally starting to catch my breath and feel a little more in control of what is going on around me. At the time of writing we are still sleeping in the …
June started in very positive fashion, with the stonemason we had been waiting on for months finally being available to repair the cracked linted in the newly revealed large fireplace. We finally got the in line extractor installed in the ceiling above the shower room and changed the aged halogen lights for LED spots and …
May was improbably warm and dry in SW Scotland. The weather was glorious, but drought is perilous for those (like us) with private water supplies. A daily hike down to the well became the norm once the burn (stream) past our house stopped flowing. Just the circumstances you want for when your in-laws are about …
I’m running a bit late with this update, as almost as soon as I had updated the numbers for last month, we were overtaken by a life event that has rather dominated the last few weeks. I will talk about it more in next month, but I suspect this update may be a bit more …
February was a bit of a whirlwind. A very positive one, but a whirlwind nonetheless. Our 3 week San Diego house sit continued into the first week of the month, and because we thought it unlikely that we’d find ourselves in that part of the world again, we tacked a short road trip on the …
January was a month of huge contrast, as we spent the first 2 weeks at home in Scotland after returning from Christmas and New Year down south, but then the last 2 weeks were spent on our most adventurous house sit to date – in San Diego! We enjoyed the winter sunshine in Majorca last …
We started the month with a week in the Isle of Man to look after 2 miniature schnauzers called Stanlee (grey) and Gracie (black). Their owners were new to house sitting, but were very welcoming and very organised. We were greeted with glasses of champagne and they cooked us an amazing meal the night we …
It has taken me a very long time to get around to finishing off the story of our van conversion. We’ve been too busy using it! There seems to have been a lot of interest in the topic recently, with van conversion page views increasing and sustaining, so I thought it was about time to …
February was generally a quiet relaxed month, with a week of frantic activity in the middle. We pottered around the house and garden, decorated the kitchen and contacted local trades for quotes for work we will need help with (building a garage/workshop, taking down a tree, hiring a skip). I also spotted something very speedy …
Happy New Year! I will cover a look back on 2023 in a separate post to follow, as I’m still crunching the numbers. For now, I’ll focus on an overview of our December, which was a month of two halves. Two weeks at home in Scotland, followed by two weeks dog sitting in an apartment in Palma, was …
Finding Enough 