Dogs, cats, horses Repeat, Thornton - May 2025

Back at one of our favourite New Zealand locations with Mt Putauaki (Mt Edgecumbe) in the background.

We love hanging out with Joey, Glitch, Tux and Jess. This is one of our regular sits.

The boys love smothering James 🤣

 Tux and his photo bomber!

Jess enjoying some new growth.

Before, between and after the morning and afternoon walks, there is always plenty of time for snuggles.

Tux liked to hang about and help with Jess's daily chores of moving the break, poop picking and feeding.

Clare indulged in here first (and possibly last! 🤣) ever commission knit for a friend of a friend, who is now a friend. Black fluffy mohair jacket. Lush indeed.

James celebrated a big 0 birthday in the company of friends with our signature Lemon Meringue Pie for pudding.

Clare went to a concert with one of her longest known friends. A celebration of Elton John and Billy Joel. A little disappointed that there was no space for a boogie 💃 but a good time was had by all.

We love this place, we love these pets and we love their peeps!

Zaccie, Pongakawa - March 2025

This property genuinely belongs to this old guy. Zaccie is 15yo. He has lived on this hill with his Dad all that time and had free range of the area. He also spent lots of his time next door at the property we are housesitting. A few weeks ago his Dad died 😢 and this couple (bless their wee cotton socks) agreed to take charge of him. He seems to be thriving on the familiarity and is very happy here. It is such a blessing that he is able to see out his dotage in familiar surroundings with people who love him 🥰

 This is an official grid property that has been set up extremely well with different small buildings with different purposes - bathroom/laundry with a composting toilet, lounge/kitchen and bedroom next to a long drop loo. We were warm and comfortable and happy to be romped around the hill each day by Zaccie. With plenty of rest time.e in between.

The owners run a very cool native plant hire company so we left them an appropriate parting gift.

Jed and friends, Thornton - April 2025

Our next sit in Thornton, Bay of Plenty, was an absolute charm! We had the very good company of Jed and his five cat friends ... Imp, Nova, Millie, Tango and Tigger (the only one to not make real friends). 

There was plenty of shenanigans going on, that's for sure ...

We are always at our happiest when the cats and dogs get on so well together ❤️ 

As usual, with kitties, there was a bit of night-time goings on with ginger kitty, Tango, needing to bring us a couple of mice. One of them he let go and sauntered off, leaving James to catch it in a bucket 🤣

We were also in charge of three gorgeous goats, chickens who's eggs we thoroughly enjoyed, and Luka, the very old and gentlemanly  horse (who actually belonged to our friends and housesitting hosts around the corner who recommended us for this sit).

RIP buddy 😢 Luka was a very old guy who had been having lots of trouble getting back to his feet after lying down. Arthritis, general muscle decline ... all the sad outcomes of age. The time came to make the kindest most caring decision when this happened when we went to feed him one morning. Fortunately his humans were just down the road and on hand to make all the tough decisions.  It was very sad though, and we both cried and had a few 'down' days.

All in all, we were so pleased to make a bunch of new friends in the Bay of Plenty, our favourite NZ destination.

Goodnight, from the motly crew 😴 😘