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I can hardly believe that I am sitting here, writing our September update. This means that our four-month stay in Brighton is almost over!

Back in June, when our train first trundled into Preston park, we had six house sits in five different homes in and around Brighton all booked ahead of us.

Unbelievably, As I write this, our sixth and final house sit is almost completed!

By doing this sit, we are completing the circle and are literally back where we started. The lady we house-sat for in June has gone on a cruise and invited us back to look after her house again whilst she is gone. This final time is for five weeks.

It has been a great way to end our time in Brighton. If you have been reading my blogs regularly then you may remember that this is the house that has no pets.

We have ended our string of Brighton house sits with another five weeks of far less responsibility than our usual house sits entail. Having no pets here has also given us more time to ourselves to enjoy our last month in Brighton.

Brighton

We have loved our summer of 2022. Brighton reminds us very much of Manchester with the added bonus of it being by the sea. It is not perfect. It can get noisy. The streets are not particularly clean, and the city seems to have a high number of rough sleepers with all the mental health, and drug & alcohol dependency issues that come with that.

However, there is no mistaking the fact that Brighton is a very cool city.

It has lots of ‘characters’ walking the streets. The large student population keeps the city young and edgy. There is a high percentage of independently owned bars, cafes and shops that help to keep the city vibrant, diverse, and most importantly – busy. Add to this the museums, art galleries, theatres, music venues, the seaside, the beautiful South Downs on its doorstep and its excellent transportation system with buses running regularly and its six train stations from where you can be in central London in approximately one hour and you have the recipe for a great place to live!

Having said all that, we feel that four months is long enough for us to be in one place and we are now itching to get moving again.

Meeting friends

Whenever it is possible on our travels we always grab any opportunity to meet up with friends old and new. This month, with all the extra time to ourselves, we managed to do this on three separate occasions.

Marcella & Antonio are also full-time pet & house sitters. We met them for the first time in June. Since then, they have been doing more house sits around the UK. We were delighted to hear that they had another house sit booked in Brighton in September so we took the opportunity to spend another afternoon with them.

Jason & Avon are our friends that live in London. We met them a few years ago when they came to stay with us in our apartment in Manchester as our Airbnb guests. We immediately hit it off and have remained good friends ever since. They happened to be in Brighton for the weekend this month so we spent a lovely day with them and their dog, Shadow.

Michael & Simon are two of the first friends we met when we moved to Manchester back in 2007. Nowadays, We don’t see them half as much as we would like to so were really happy when they told us that they were visiting London and offered to come to visit us whilst they were close by. We enjoyed a lovely evening with them consisting of a meal, a pint and, as always when in their company, plenty of gossip and laughs.

Two years of having no fixed abode!

We have found ourselves reminiscing quite a lot throughout September. This month marks the two-year anniversary that we have been of no fixed abode.

To date, we have moved 49 times! – 27 house sits, 18 Airbnbs, 3 hotels and not forgetting one very uncomfortable night in an airport lounge!

September the 2nd 2020 was the date we originally had planned to leave Manchester. However, I made a stupid mistake when booking our flight tickets which meant that we were not allowed to board the plane.

We frantically re-booked and eventually left our much-loved apartment in Manchester on September the 4th 2020. Our first destination was to be Nea Peramos in Greece.

The adventure has had its ups and downs but on the whole, has far exceeded our expectations.

When we left Manchester, we had originally planned to move frequently and randomly, living exclusively in Airbnb accommodation. That was going well until everything changed in June 2021 when we discovered house & pet sitting.

Since then, our travel route has been decided by where our house and pet-sitting bookings have taken us. With the exception of the amazing month we spent in Girona, Spain, so far all our house sits have been in the UK.

Where next?

Next, we are heading back to Greece – this time for a family visit. We promised we would visit Karyos family sometime this year. As the year is flying by and also as Gatwick airport is only a twenty minute’s train journey from Brighton this seems to be a sensible time to go.

After Greece?

Good question! During this month we have been thinking a lot about where to go after Greece. We want to explore another country – somewhere out of Europe whilst Karyo is not working and hence is not tied to time zones.

But where?

Drum roll…..

We are very excited to announce that we have only gone and booked a five-week house sit in New Zealand over the Christmas & new year period!

This is to start on the 15th of December but we are hoping to find another one (or maybe two) before that to make the visit longer. It is still all in the air but if we do manage to find another earlier booking we will go straight to New Zealand from Greece. Our other option is to try to find a house sit somewhere between Greece and New Zealand. We could do a few weeks there and then head to New Zealand in time for our confirmed sit over the holiday period.

The plan is all very fluid but also very exciting and hopefully, I will have more information next month – watch this space!

Colin & Karyo xx