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| Mercer in Hythe, South Kent |
Over the past five years I’ve been welcomed into the houses of people I’ve never met and trusted with some of the things dearest to them — their pets. I’ve also welcomed strangers to my flat to look after my cat mate Indi.
This is pet sitting — to find sits and sitters I use the
website Trusted Housesitters, but others are Mindahome UK and MindMyHouse (there’s also HousesSitSearch, which aggregates different sites). Some sitters travel solo or in
couples, some with families or even with their own pets. No money changes
hands, but the sitter gets accommodation and the owner a pet-loving live-in
carer, so there are no kennel or cattery fees and the pet stays in their home
environment. Truly a win-win, I think.
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| Tiny Man in Andalucia — 'why, what else are plant pots for?' |
For me, one of the benefits of sitting is an opportunity to
discover places I never would normally. I’m currently in Market Rasen, a
pleasant Lincolnshire town, but hardly on the beaten tourist track. But if I
hadn’t come here, I would never have visited the wonderful Lincoln Museum or
seen the only statue I know incorporating an algebraic calculation (the statue
is to George Boole, whose development of algebraic logic laid the foundations
for modern computer design, and who grew up and taught in Lincoln. Photo at the end).
Cats are lovely companions and need less attention than dogs, but they can be characters — a rather hyper pair near Bath had to be kept apart, and one of them was not above running into the kitchen and nipping my ankle to remind me to feed her. But such forward behaviour is unusual.
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| Kipper, an aged Oxfordshire gent |
Some other memorable moments and experiences I’ve had pet sitting
are:
• walking
between the beautiful Oxfordshire villages of Adderbury and Deddington as
abundant Red Admiral butterflies flew up around my feet
• making firm
friends with the first people I sat for in 2018, in the Suffolk town of
Woodbridge
• seeing a
deer raise its head from the grass in the twilight on Farnham Park in Surrey (I
never expected deer so close to the town)
• sitting in
a top floor flat above the bustling streets of Brixton reading Keeping their marbles: How the treasures of the past ended up in museums… and why they should stay there by Tiffany Jenkins — the most detailed case in favour of retaining ‘contested’
objects in museums I’ve read (raiding new bookshelves — with permission of
course — is one of the pleasures of sitting)
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| Arnold in Sheffield changes the settings on my laptop |
Are sitters or sits in more demand?
Supply and demand? Sits seem to be taken very fast in
London, as do longer-term sits anywhere. Those in remoter places may take more
time, but my impression from the Trusted Housesitters site is that sits and
sitters are fairly evenly balanced. And like me, many people have both sitters
in their home and sit for others. So if you are either looking for care for
your furry one(s), or a chance to travel with free accommodation and
four-legged companionship, it is well worth considering.
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| Tony the little lion in Suffolk |
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| statue of George Boole with two students… |
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| … and the equation |