We flew out of Brisbane on Sunday 9th December 2018, not knowing if we’d achieve our goal of spending a year in France, and with only two house sits confirmed (the first and ninth in France for our friend in this photo with us), and no long-term visa approved. I have published a post summarising our time in France, and our memories of that part of this adventure. We then came across to the UK in late November 2019 and undertook four house sits here.

Fast forward one year, two months, two weeks and one day, and we are set to land in Brisbane on Monday 24th February 2020.

I actually write this blog for myself and Mick – as an electronic and visual diary of our adventures. We often read old posts to remind ourselves of things we have forgotten or just to reminisce about wonderful times. I never thought that I’d end up with more than 90 followers, and I want to thank those of you who have read lots of our stories. While this will not be the end of my posts – it will be for awhile, but there were a few things I thought might be of interest to some of you about this trip. If not, I will not be offended if you finish here.

In addition to the blog, we share an old-fashioned diary – I make notes about mundane things, and Mick draws images to capture something that tickles his fancy. We look at things differently, and he has a knack of identifying that.

What have we learnt about each other and ourselves?

• With the majority of the time away being spent in the company of each other, often it was only the two of us, we learned that after five decades of first becoming aware of each other, and just over 43 years of marriage, that we are actually still good friends and good travelling buddies. And, I am very grateful to Mick for being willing to try pretty much anything so we were able to have this opportunity.
• We can survive with very few possessions – in fact our suitcases are lighter going home than when we left, as the clothes we have been wearing for more than a year have actually worn out. We are both keen to reassess our wardrobes and our home’s contents at some time in the future.
• We are adaptable in terms of where we are living, and probably more importantly, where we are sleeping – having stayed in more than 13 homes for house sitting and then spending more than 80 days in motels, and three with our son and his girlfriend in Ely. That makes a lot of different beds and showers and pillows and spaces we have used. And I haven’t even mentioned that we shared our beds on occasion with small dogs and cats!! (I never thought I would do that.)
• In our efforts to keep up to date with our family and friends, our reliance on technology and the internet increased. Signing up for a VPN (virtual private network) before we left Australia was a great idea as it allowed us to watch ABC TV regularly, and to stay abreast of all the issues, mostly climate related, impacting Australia.
• Despite all the changes in location and settings we had, we are “routine-seekers”.  I’m not sure that is even a term, but once we were settled into a house sit along with the associated animal routines, we established fairly regular times for meals, getting up and going to bed, and other activities including reading, completing cryptic crosswords and studying (French).

What mistakes did we make?

• Using a travel agent to book our flights was unnecessary and a mistake. We sought help with our tickets before we left because we wanted a fully flexible ticket (allowing us to change the return flight at quite a cheap rate, once we knew when we wanted to return) only to find out the tickets had to be used within a 12 month period – and we wanted to stay longer. This is not what we asked for, obviously there were some wires crossed with the young travel agent and ourselves. We had to forfeit our return ticket and purchase new return flights back to Australia. This then had a flow-on effect for our travel insurance – which ran out after 12 months. Buying insurance while overseas is limited to 3 months only, and is very expensive. But we managed it. You can manage pretty much anything if you have the money to pay for it.
• We both packed too many clothes – particularly for holidaying in France where it is very easy to buy good, cheap clothing at markets. I did buy some winter items at markets and left them behind as we departed. While they may not have been the latest style, they did the job and now hopefully someone else is getting some use out of them.

What regrets do we have?

• That we weren’t brave enough to stay in France without applying for a long-stay visa. The time and money spent on the process actually proved unnecessary as not once were we asked to show our visa to immigration officers, and that was with us taking a four-day long weekend in the UK in the middle of our stay.
• Not staying longer in some places and with some people. For example we were invited to stay with this wonderful couple we house sat for in Normandy when they returned from their holiday – we got on very well together. But we had decided it was more important to visit Brittany. It wasn’t!
• Dining out at the fancy Michelin starred restaurant in Bélesta – not once but twice. Each course was so complicated and looked stunning, but the taste wasn’t always the best, and the price was extraordinarily high.
• We packed some weight resistant straps for exercising while we were away, and at some of the house sits we added an exercises program into our ‘routine’. But, we did not use them often enough!!

One other general observation we made about such a trip for people of our vintage, 14-15 months is possibly the longest time we could stay away from ‘home’. We were very lucky to remain in good health, but we both need to have our regular checkups with doctors, skin specialists and dentists etc. The joys of getting older!!

There will be more adventures to come for us as we will not be moving back into our home until late September when our tenants leave. We have a few plans, but there are big chunks of time where we are unsure where we might be living or exploring.

But for now, we are very much looking forward to seeing our children and grandchildren – so much has happened since we left.

We are very pleased we took the chance to do what we have done!!

Now to end with – a few more of Mick’s gems….