Cheltenham housesitting - week 1

Brian cutting grass on the ride on lawnmower

Well a week has passed and I’m still not back to normal, but we are loving chilling. The cats are gorgeous, I’m typing with Mr. Pickles on my lap which is never easy, but is great. Nellie spent most of last night on the bed, so when she found time to bring us a bird I’m not sure. I blame her as she did come in wearing a feather...

The house and garden are beautiful, the kitchen only has an aga which despite the weather hasn’t roasted us, lots of doors open and being on top of a hill help I think. I like cooking on an aga, instant heat but it does take a little getting used to. Fortunately apart from watering and lawn mowing, the rest of the garden is looked after by a hedge man and a gardener. The birds on the feeders are fab, though they are very greedy, sunflower seeds being the favourite, as Tim described them “heroin

Mr. Pickles making himself comfy on Jackies lap

for birds”. They are very wasteful however which does mean the pheasants and squirrels get some too. We are not very good with birds, lots of tits, and I’m going with a lesser spotted woodpecker, he’s going to try and get some photos with the proper camera. We’ve seen a fox, rabbits and bats but so far, no deer, apart from the dead one! We had been warned of a sickly deer about, so we are assuming it’s that one and probably for the best. We didn’t find it till it was too late to move it though so will rely on the local fauna to do that, shame there are no hyena or vultures!

We went into Cheltenham on Wednesday after Brian measured the voltage on the car battery. Not good, so we thought we’d try to start it when the gardener was here in case we needed a jump. It did start but the man at Kwik Fit said we needed a new one. We wandered into Cheltenham while it was fitted, though we didn’t see much as our attention was taken by the Bangkok Kitchen Thai restaurant we passed with very reasonable prices, and that was before the 50% “eat out to help out “ discount was applied! Rude not to really, and it was delicious.

And chilled out on our bed

We ventured out yesterday, all the way to Aldi, used now to wearing our masks. The car still has a misfire, better since we filled it up, but worse when very hot and up hills. Will try and get it looked at tomorrow when it has some new tyres, and Ted has an MOT! What excitement!

Easy does it! Who was it that said this looked like a mobility scooter with built in comode? Helen - it was you!

The beautiful house we're in for all of August, situated in the heart of the Cotswolds

Some of the birdfeeders and birds outside the kitchen window. On the floor is a woodpecker tidying up. I'm going to bring back my proper camera next week and try to get some better photos of the wildlife. Lots of different birds, squirrels and rabbits - a rabbit hopped right up to the back door this morning when I went down to make coffee, peering in at me. Didn't have the camera unfortunately

This photo of Mr. Pickles was taken outside just after he was rudely awakened in the kitchen by a swift flying in through the open door. It flew around for a bit trying to find its way out again and he got very interested. It flew out and away before he really knew what had happened

And here's the two of them, both on the bed with us. Nellie and Mr. Pickles