At last, a ‘normal’ blog.

Ruby dog in the big chair outside the local pub in Hilton

We are very pleased to be sitting for Ruby dog and Stimpy cat in Tim and Jill’s beautiful house, somewhere we’ve been before, know the routine and can relax. The only new thing is the alarm which I did manage to trigger the other night. I’d forgotten to get the prawns out of the freezer to defrost, so nipped to the freezer..... this was shortly followed by a message from Tim, in Antigua, asking whether it was us or Stimpy.... you can’t get away with anything nowadays!

It would have been rude not to call in as we were passing

A brief rest on one of our longer walks

The ‘enforced exercise’ of Ruby is probably a good thing, it would be really easy just to sit and vegetate, and we have been enjoying a certain amount of that. We did a 2000 piece jigsaw Alex lent us in 4 days...! Easy walking for Ruby is three times round the field where we try and coincide with Johanna and Ebony dog in a morning. They play very well together and vanish in the hugely long grass snuffing for mice. It’s a bit like man overboard drill on a boat as they dash off. If you don’t watch them go it would be impossible to find them. Ruby expends huge amounts of energy leaping up to look over the grass to see where we are, until she gets the scent of a mouse when that’s it, all her focus, till eventually one of us has to go in to bring her out!

An inquisitive Ruby dog

Stimpy cats usual day bed

There have been many trips to Aldi where we both have to go, one to shop and one to field the admiring glances and comments. Walks both ways down the cycle track give walks of different lengths at different times of day. Fortunately it hasn’t been too hot as 17.00 seems to be a time we need to do something. It’s a couple of hours till her dinner, but she’s beginning to get hungry, and I think that James usually gets home from school 16.30/17.00 as she starts looking and fussing....

And she's used this a couple of times as her night bed - our clothes bag in our bedroom

Sunset from our bedroom window

Stimpy has grown more tolerant of Ruby, though I don’t think they will ever actually be friends, but at least we don’t have to have the child gate into one of the lounges as we had to have last year. She has also been spending some of most nights on the bed with us which is lovely. She’s a funny cat, on stroking there is nearly always a miaow and a little jump to the hand, not necessarily what you want in the middle of the night, but really very cute.

This amused me on one of our walks: 'Restored Pine Furnishings' on the left and, on the right, but pointing to the same building 'Firewood for sale'. Presumably for the restorations that didn't go quite to plan!

Paella with Fiona (Brian's daughter) and James

Yesterday we had Fiona and James over for lunch. They wanted a repeat of last years paella which we were very happy to do as we really enjoy it too. Followed by tiramisu made with caramel vodka, and then tapas, in case anyone was still hungry and to get our own back for not being able to leave theirs till we’d eaten turkey sandwiches...! Lots of chat, drinking and eating we had a lovely day.

Left overs for dinner, so that’s easy, just have to decide whether to start another jigsaw, get in the car to buy a Sunday paper as the local Tesco was fresh out of Telegraphs, or read, or crossword, or..... an easy, chilling Sunday

Look at that! It was as good as it looks

This is why we love housesitting, how can we not relax when we see our charges taking it easy. Ruby dog in one room...

And Stimpy cat relaxing in another

And we've won an award for it 'Super Sitter'! Well, Jackie has, I'm just the helper!

Sometimes, when you're trying to do something, they make it quite hard work

But how can you not lover her to bits!