Monday 9 September 2019

From country bumpkins to city slickers - Aug 2019

Dorothy and her ten babies
We drove straight from Devon back to the farm in Cumbria to take care of things while Louise and Stephen went down to Suffolk to prepare for the wedding of Lou's daughter.

To our utter delight, Dorothy had recently given birth to ten gorgeous squeeling bundles of delight.  

Mucking out
We also took on the challenge of cleaning out the spare/storage/dog's room and building some shelving to keep things in order.


The garden was in full swing also which kept James busy shelling and freezing peas ... with a little bit of help from his 'friend' ;-)


Poppy enjoyed sunning herself wherever she could find a spot of sun.

Just look at that beautiful view!
Jeeves and Wooster enjoyed their usual cuddles.


And there were plenty of shenanigans left over for Reg and Poppy.

Watching the cat on the window sill

Bedtime cuddles
 Clare got bitten by a horsefly whilst poo picking the horse field and got cellulitis!  A heavy course of antibiotics soon sorted it out but we were surprised at how aggressively fast the swelling and infection grew.

We handed over to the next house sitter so that we could make it down to the wedding ourselves.

James and his family

Clare busting out moves on the dance floor
From here, we went straight to Sizewell to sit Gail for Jenny for a few short days.   Jenny is one of our repeat clients and was in between houses, staying in a self contained unit right on the beach .... which suited us down to the ground for obvious reasons. 

Gail enjoying an evening at the beach


Jenny's landlady had recently injured herself and was finding it difficult to walk her own wee dog, Tigger.  We were more than happy to oblige and Gail enjoyed his company too.

Tigger making himself at home

Out in the forest together

Gail looking for squirrels
There are definite benefits to repeat sits.  One of them is that we already know the area which makes walking the dog/s so much easier.

Tiverton, Devon ..... July 2019

Porlock Weir ... north coast
We came to Tiverton to care for a gorgeous wee kitty called Fudge.


Fudge had recently fallen on hard times when she lost her running mate and sister, Candy.  This was sad enough for Fudge but things got worse when she got run over on the road outside the house and was lame for a number of weeks before we arrived.  You see, Fudge is totally deaf and Candy was her ears when they were out exploring, so without Candy, Fudge couldn't hear the car coming.

Fudge enjoying the midday sun
By the time we got to sit with her, things were looking well up.   In fact, it wasn't at all apparent that she'd had such a bad injury.  The happy outcome is that she no longer leaves the property, so we got to enjoy her company a lot more.  Especially when food was involved .....



 


As you can see, Fudge is pretty interested in food, especially human food ;-)

The reason we applied for this Cat Only sit, was to give us more time for fishing and kayaking whilst we were in this fabulous county in the middle of summer.  We went kayak fishing at Ladram Bay in the early mornings ..... before the maddening crowds arrived.  It was approaching school summer holidays and things were starting to get busy.

Wrasse


Wrasse

Lunch stop
Even Fudge was keento get involved.


We caught some mackerel for eating.  Fudge learned to appreciate our offerings too.

And our first ever red mullet (not for eating!)
We enjoyed exploring the south coast too.  Spending time both relaxing and fishing at .....

Teignmouth

Sidmouth

Budleigh Salterton

And even dug our own lug worms at Exmouth

We didn't catch an awful lot for eating, but to us, fishing is about more than that.  It is mostly about the opportunity (excuse) to hang about at the waters edge (or on the water), enjoying the great outdoors, listening to the waves and watching 'the world go by'.

At the end of the day, there was always a warm, snuggly Fudge to come home to.