One of the nice things about being a teacher is the ongoing contact we have with our students.

 

Today I was sent this photo of Emily, one of my students in China.  Peter and I are still in contact with many of the students we had in China, and Emily was at Longyan University, which was our first teaching job in  China. While we were there, the students became our surrogate children.

Weddings in China are very different to weddings in the West. One of the big cultural differences between the East and the West is this:

In the West, people fall in love then marry.

In the East, (China anyway) usually people marry then hopefully fall in love.

Arranged marriages are still quite common, not so much in the sense that the bride and groom have no say in the matter, but marriages are often based on social and financial grounds. Generally, the groom will be introduced to different girls by his family, and eventually he will choose one. Ideally it should be a girl that the family thinks is suitable on all levels, and one that will fit into their own particular social sphere.

When a young man is introduced by a family member to a prospective bride, there will be a meeting arranged where the adults will be there, and the girl and boy look at each other and decide if they want to take it any further. Sometimes the prospective bride and groom will not even speak to each other, just look. If the groom likes the look of the bride, he will arrange for a family member to tell the girl and her family, and then he will ask her out, usually to dinner.

They will then spend quite some time getting to know one another. Sometimes these pairs will eventually marry and sometimes they realise they are not suited so it ends.

Emily, above, is not yet married. They will sign the marriage papers some weeks or months before the wedding party, and they spend another day or two having photos taken so a very beautiful photo album is compiled. They will usually have all this done and the photo album ready for their wedding day. This is the day of what we would call the 'wedding reception'. They have a large party and invite all their friends and relatives. There are often several hundred people at the wedding party.

Food is a very important part of Chinese culture and at a wedding there is a huge amount of food that comes out over the period of one or two hours. Eveyone sits at tables, usually ten to a table and enjoys a wonderful feast. There are other customs involved, and at the end of a very long day, the couple are considered to be married in the Chinese style.

Many of our Chinese students are getting married as this is an auspicious year for marriage and for babies according to the Chinese calendar, so we are getting more photos like the one above from students getting married.

Doesn't she look lovely?

Its surprising what you find. Buttons and bows.

We got our very first house sit through a website called www.easyhousesitting.com, and our first visit was to Adelaide, a city we had never visited before. We got a house sit for nine weeks, right on the beach, caring for two dogs a cat and a couple of fish.

One of the great things about house sitting in different places is the exploring. One day we went into town for a browse around the shops. Their main street is a mall, so it is easy to wander around. Coming off the main mall, Arundel Mall, we found the Adelaide Arcade. This is an older arcade with some very interesting shops.

It's amazing just what you find when you least expect it. Along this arcade on the left was a button shop. If you are like me and have done lots of knitting and sewing over the years, there was a huge range of really nice buttons available, but it seems to be really hard to find something different  in most of the sewing shops these days. I remember knitting a cardigan when I was young and I bought the most beautiful irridescent buttons to go on it. When that cardigan ended its days, I kept those buttons and used them on several other garments, until one day, somehow they got lost.

However, this shop was an absolute gold mine of buttons. The photos I took didn't turn out very well at all unfortunately.

 All the walls were full of shelves with buttons of every colour size and pattern imaginable. I took one of their business cards, and the link for their website is below. When you go to their website you will see a picture of their shop.

They said that they get requests from all over Australia for buttons. They say they have Australia's most comprehensive range of buttons, embroidered and sequined motifs and fashion accessories. Also many selected and specialised haberdashery items. The lady in the shop also said they will take orders by email and send them anywhere, but you might need to email them and check this out.

I just drooled for ages over the enormous selection of sewing accessories. I didn't buy any, because I am not sewing or knitting at the moment, but I sure know where to go if I need any unusual buttons in the future.

This was one of the best finds during the whole nine weeks in Adelaide. A really fabulous little shop. If you are a knitter or sewer and spend some time in Adelaide you might like to check it out.

Here is their website. http://www.adelaidearcade.com.au/buttonbar.php

You need to be adaptable.

One of the more difficult things with house sitting is the constant change. If you are a person of habit and hate change, then you might find this harder to deal with. Lets consider some of the changes a house sitter faces in the kitchen.

With every house there is a different kitchen. I have had everything from grubby, messy and small, to large and spotless and everything inbetween. Every kitchen has a few similarities. There are usually at least one set of drawers, and look in every kitchen, you will probably find the cutlery in the top one, cooking utensils in the second, teatowels somewhere in the third or fourth and things like cling wrap and plastic bags in the other.

This is one of the nicer kitchens I have had to work in. A large corner pantry had lots of storage space and a large fridge/freezer with icemaking facilities was good.



As for stoves I have had to get used to gas which was a new experience for me, and several kinds of other cooktops. I had one that was a ceramic cook top with a touch panel instead of knobs. I really found that hard to work, the pressure needed on the cook top varied with every button.

Ovens vary, from lovely clean wall ovens to huge family ovens to dirty things I refused to cook in until it had been scrubbed out. But it's the variation in the temperatures of ovens that takes a while to get used to.

Dishwashers are another thing. Some work really well, and others are hopeless, but it takes a while to get to know the different machinery in a home. In two places we ended up doing the dishes by hand, we just didn't like the dishwashers.

One of the main things is what is left in the cupboard for you, as the visitor to use when you arrive. I have had one place, a beautiful kitchen, clean and large, where the people didn't even leave us milk for a cuppa, nor one slice of bread for breakfast. We had stayed the night, they left early in the morning, we then went to make some breakfast, but the cupboards were bare. I knew we would have to do shopping, no problems there, but enough for breakfast would be expected. On the other hand, in the present place we are sitting, the lady left a panty and fridge chock full of food. We work on the 'use it and replace it' method, so that when we leave, the cupboards are in much the same condition as when we arrived.

So be prepared to be adaptable when moving from place to place. I usually take one or two of my own things so I have something of my own on the bench, but you can't make many changes. One further thought, I always take photographs of the house as soon as we move in. I do the whole house, so that if I make changes it can go back to the original look when we leave. It's also useful in case of any damage, or in case they say something goes missing. We have never had any problems in this regard, but you might think that having a photographic record of everything as you move in is a good idea.

Fish and chips on the beach.

One of the great things about house sitting is the variety of places we see. At the moment we are staying on the Gold Coast. Normally this would be considered one of the top holiday destinations, but we are free to enjoy it any time at all.

The school holidays have just started, so with the owner’s permission we have our fourteen year old granddaughter staying with us for a couple of days. We decided to take her to the beach for fish and chips for lunch.

Wrapped up in the normal white paper it's the sort of take away we don't have too often, but really enjoy when we do.

It’s surprising how hard it is to find a fish and chip shop right on the main beach, so we ended up cruising right along the beach til we got to Burleigh Heads. We had stayed at Burleigh heads some time ago and knew a really good fish and chip shop there.

Once we had our food we walked just a hundred yards or so to the beach and sat at one of the barbeque tables overlooking the beach.

Sitting on the sand looking towards Burleigh Heads.

The fish was really good quality Dory, sweet and tender and the batter was thin and crispy. I took some tomato sauce with me, so I could have plenty of sauce with the chips.

Once we were full of fish and chips we had a walk down by the sea. There was an off-shore wind, so the waves were unusually small. We could see where previous storms had washed away a lot of the sand, so there was a bank we had to walk down to get to the water.

Looking north to Surfers Paradise skyline. There is rain coming down from the north, but it's nice here at the moment and sunny to the south.

It's winter time, but there were still a few hardy souls swimming and some of the Life Guards were on duty.There was also some sort of cycling race in the area, so lots of stalls and tents were lining the road above the beach.

Not a bad life really eh? Yay for house sitting!

It pays to look up.

We had a house sit not far from Tamworth. We found after a while that the sky around that area was most unusual. It seems to be on the main flight path for many destinations, and often we would go outside and see vapour trails going in every direction.

You can see in the photo above, when we were not far from a cute little town called Nundle, one vapour trail in the sky, and you can see the turn the plane was making.


The most unusual thing though was that this seemed to be the place that everyone turned. Quite often we would see up to six or seven vapour trails, some of them new like the one above or some of them old and all spread out like the one below. There are at least three vapour trails below, but they have been there some time and are gradually disintergrating.

 It became a habit of ours everytime we went outside to look up and check the sky. This is probably old hat to those who live in the area, but to us, it was a real source of interest, to see how many planes had turned overhead in the last hour or two. Mornings were the best time. We were only a couple of hunded kilometers from Sydney, so probably many of these planes were interntional ones getting their flight paths lined up for landing.

How often do you look up and see what's going on up in the sky?

To store or not to store?

One of the first problems you will have to face is what to do with the things in your current home. You may not own your own home, but you will have 'stuff'. We all  have 'stuff', some more than others, and as we get older we hang on to more stuff for sentimental reasons rather than for its value.

So, we had to decide what to do with our 'stuff'. I  had things I absolutely refused to throw out, family keepsakes, travel things, photo albums that weighed a ton, and of course clothes that I wanted to keep. On top of that we had a house full of furniture. We did not own our own home at this stage, so that was not a problem.

We decided that we would hire a storage unit, but these can actually be really expensive. So if you want to try storage, check the prices, and exactly what you will get. We were around the Brisbane area for some time so we went to Storageland in Yatala. That gave us easy access from the Gold Coast or Brisbane. They also had great security, but 24/7 access.

Of course there was still quite a bit of stuff to carry from place to place. So we bought a trailer.

 Now compared to the big 4WD on the left our trailer looks pretty small, but actually it was a good size. We bought sufficient camping gear, and good quality gear too, so that we could camp between house sits if we wanted. The white tubular frame acted as a good frame for the covering tarps and we also hung our clothes on one part of it. This trailer held all the camping gear, all our food, (I carry a mini kitchen with me) all our clothes, and a few little mementos I take with me.

In the back seat of the car we have a small camping fridge that plugs into the 12 volt car battery and our laptops. So we are a home away from home, with the bigfurniture and boxes stored permanently, and our current' stuff' on hand all the time.

Sometimes if we are going from one house sit to another we will use motels instead of setting up the tent, but we have it there if we need it.

This has worked out to be a very suitable arrangment. We are self sufficient enough to stay away for a year at a time.

PS. I thnk we have had the last laugh, no sign of our noctural visitors any more.

He who has the last laugh

I have to reluctantly admit, that at the moment ratty is having the last laugh. We think that by putting the piece of wood under the dishwasher we have blocked his exit. Last night, sitting in front of a lovely fire, watching Dancing with the Stars, our little friendly rat was keeping time, doing the cha cha and rhumba around our chairs, no sense of guilt, no sense of shame, but great sense of rythym, whizzing in and out of our line of vision with great skill.

He could also have our family high IQ, a very smart brain, he has avoided the rat bait as if it were poison...lol.

We have tried to buy rat traps at Woollies, KMart, Target, pet shops and other supermarkets, and they are just not available. The baits are available but we need a James Bond trap that is licensed to kill, or at least capture the poor wee thing so Peter can deal to it outside.

We are making a trip to a hardware shop today. Ratty beware, we will have the last laugh.

Rats

Today is not such a happy day...we have had to put out rat baits.

The home owners often fed the local birds, and being bird lovers we have continued this, so we get lorikeets, cockatoos, butcher birds, Kookaburras etc in our garden and we enjoy watching them. We also have a bird bath next to the bird feeding station.  However, we have also had a few rats and mice visit.

Now if the rats and mice behaved themselves and stayed outside, I wouldn't mind, but they have started coming inside. I know its not mice coming in because we got busy with a mouse trap but our nocturnal visitors try to take the mouse trap with them. Anyway I have seen them a couple of times and the inside visitors are rats. We even tried to block their entrance, thinking they were coming in under the dishwasher, but that hasn't worked either.

I'm not frightened of rats or mice, (give me a huntsman and I'm outta here) but rodents don't bother me. But they have been getting up onto the bench and eating the fruit, and generally considering my place to be their place. They look nice and clean, but we are told that they habour all sorts of nasty stuff on their bodies. So I have spent quite some time completely cleaning the kitchen and now have put down rat bait to send them on their way. There is one rat bait by the fridge, but we have also put some out by the birdseed feeder. I feel dreadful because they have been out by the bird feeder, having a five star nosh-up that will ultimately send them to meet their maker.

One of the minor issues with house sitting...getting rid of the vermin...otherwise they can get into the walls and ceilings and do damage...something we try and avoid.

References for potential house sitting places.

Getting the first house sit may be the most difficult one. Often home owners will ask for a reference from previous home owners, and you won't have one. In this case you will need some other types of references, either personal ones, work references or something that shows you are a responsible person, e.g. self employment, professional positions etc.

However, as you move from house sit to house sit you can start to accummulate your references. This is a huge help when it comes to replying to advertisements you see. In our case we do the following:

1. When we first make arrangements with a new home owner we tell them that when they come home we would like them to give us a reference. This has never been a problem.

2. Usually we go to the house sit the day before the owners leave, to get the feel for the place, meet the people, meet the pets, and go over all the information we need about our new town. We also remind them that we would like a reference when they come home.

3. We have a standard reference letter that we use, but change with each home sit. It states that we, (our names) have cared for the home of ( their names) at (address) and that we also cared for the gardens (give a bit of information about the land area etc) and the pets (name and describe the pets). I also put the dates we were there. Then I state that the home was well cared for and the pets well looked after etc. If there is a printer available I print off two copies and have it ready for when the owners return, one copy for us and one copy for them. Usually we would stay one more night with the family, and leave the following morning, so this gives them time to make sure all is well. Before we leave I ask them to sign the reference if they are happy with how we cared for their home. We make sure there is some kind of contact information, phone number or email address for future contacts.

4. We keep the references together, and we also scan them and keep them on our laptop so we can email them to prospective home owners if asked for.

5. A couple of times I could not print off a copy, so I asked for the owners to email us a reference, and so far we have a lovely reference from every home owner.

These references are really important if you are going a long distance and can't meet the prospective home owners first. Of course, you could skype, but not everyone can do that either. So a selection of good references will almost certainly get you any house sit you want.

Especially if you want to consider going overseas, such references would probably be the difference between getting a good house sit or missing out.

So be concious of asking for references for every house sit, keep them safe and have them in a format for emailing. It will make your house sitting applications very much smoother.

One of the questions you need to ask.....do you own your own home?

There are many traps for beginner house sitters. One we learned from experience is to ask the prospective home owner if they own their house or if they are renting.

If they own their own home, then you know where you stand. But if, as happened to us in one house, the house was rented, what complications might you face?

Firstly, you  might like to make sure that they advise the Real Estate agent who cares for the house. In our case, the home owners/renters did not advise the Real Estate people so they didn't know there were strangers living in the house for nine weeks while the others were overseas.

The reason they found out was that they were phoning the home owners/renters for money owed for unpaid accounts. We got several calls from them about unpaid accounts and I have a feeling that this was normal for this family, who actually were miles behind in many payments and we had to field the calls. The real estate company was not too pleased to find us there, and not being told by the owner/renter.

You also might like to ask the owner/renter how they normally pay the rent and make sure that some sort of automatic payment is in place so that while you are there you are not going to be in a compromised situation.

This has only happened to us once, but even so, it is one question we ask every time now.

Motoring complications.

When you are a long way from home, and you have major car problems what will you do? It really is necessary to have a reliable car when you are house sitting. In this regard I speak from experience. We have a reasonably modern car in very good order but for some reason something blew and the motor boiled and cracked the head. Wammo, we are without transport, living on acreage, where there are taxis but no buses close by.

I know that any car can have mechanical problems, it's not just the older ones, but in our case the cost is going to be high, and we have decided to look at buying another one. This, of course, is not going to come out of the house keeping, so a nest egg in case of emergency is absolutely necessary. It is worse in a new town, because you don't know the local garages or the local car yards. You don't have the back up network you might have in your home town. This is a disadvantage. And its not easy to work on your own car. Everything is computerised these days, and even things like changing air filters and doing an oil change are not so straightforward.

One other point. Almost all the people I know belong to their state motoring club, like RACQ in Queensland. Give some thought to the type of membership you have. You might think it worthwhile upgrading to a higher level of coverage. Often the dollar difference is not much, but the benefits can mean the difference of being towed home or to the nearest garage, which could be miles away. When we have been in our own homes for many years, then some of these changes don't occur to us. If you ae planning some house sitting, give this some serious thought.

Advanced preparation. Ambulances.

There are quite a few matters that need to be sorted out before you head off into the wide blue yonder, and ambulances is one of them.

Do you know what the situation is if you are from one state, but are house sitting in another state and need an ambulance? Often different States have different rules. So I called the local Ambulance Service to find out.

I am a Queenslander, and my  home address is in Queensland. If I am house sitting in Queensland, it's not a problem. But what if I was in NSW today, when I really did have to call an ambulance?

The Queensland Ambulance service told me that all the ambulance services are basically connected. If you are not in your home state you may be given an account that  you must then send to the ambulance service in your home state and the account will be paid by them. You generally will not have to pay up front for their services in another state, or if you do pay, then your home state will repay you. You may, however, have to prove your home address, either with your divers licence or car registration or similar.

Ambulances are usually used in emergency situations, times when we will probably be stressed, not thinking clearly, and possibly injured.So before you leave home, why not phone the ambulance service in your home state and find out for sure what their rules are, and get the address to send the acccount if you should need to.

Think ahead. Be prepared.

Creating your profile, this is when age is good

Lots of people ask us where do we get our house sits from? We use two websites,easyhousesitting.com and aussiehousesitting.com.  There are lots of different sites. You have to join the site and in most cases there are annual fees. Thats ok, you are paying for a service, but sometimes the fees are really high. Check several before you decide which ones to join.

Once you have decided, then you need to create a profile to go on the site. This is like a resume, and on your profile you put all the reasons why someone will want to trust their house and animals into your care.

And here, this is where age is a mammoth advantage. If you are retired, say so. You have the time to go and stay in different places. You have probably held down several jobs. You have probably owned your own home. You have probably had your own pets. You have probably had some stable times in your life and some of the ups and downs. You have probably travelled. These are the sorts of things home owners want. They are much more interested in older stable people rather than young skatty ones. Generally they don't want children coming into their home, although I have never had problems if I wanted my grandchildren to visit from time to time. (But to be fair, you should always get the okay from the home owner first.)

So you can see that your profile needs some time to compile. Be honest, but sell yourself a little. Things like the type of work you have had, if you have run a business etc, shows that you have handled responsibilities in your life.

In our case, we have never applied for a house sit. We have always been approached by people who have seen our profile on the website and thought we would be suitable. Sometimes we have had several at the same time wanting us to care for their homes, and had to turn some down. This way we have, at any given time, had the next six to nine months all lined up.

So write yourself a nice profile and don't be scared if you are in the 'mature' age bracket.

Why did I call this blog house sitting tails?

Why did I call this blog House sitting tails?

There are several reasons, and to make it simple I'll do a little list.

1. I needed to make it about house sitting, I think that is obvious.
2. I wanted something that was a bit different and tales is a bit boring.
3. You can bet that if you go house sitting you are going to have lots of tales about tails.
4. Most house sitting jobs are there because the owners have pets of some sort that need caring for.

When you scan through some of the posts of house sitting jobs available you will realise that you might be asked to look after cats and dogs. Well there you have a variety of tails to start with.

But there might be fish tails that need feeding very precisely. There could be horse tails that need brushing, maybe cows tails or goats tails, if you go to a farmy place.

There could easily be birds that need feeding and caring for, they can have long colourful tails. Maybe the owners have tortoises with tails, or rats and mice with tails. It's even possible you'll care for piggies with curly tails.

In most cases, go house sitting, and you'll get tails. We've already dealt with lots of tails so far and I'll tell you about them as we go along.

I'd better explain Number 8 wire.

My Australian friends tell me they don't understand the term 'No. 8 wire'. As I am originally a New Zealander, this was part of our cultural background.

According to Wikepedia, No 8 wire means this:

Number 8 wire is a gauge of wire on the British Standard wire gauge that has entered into the cultural lexicon of New Zealand.

Number 8 wire is often used inventively and practically for applications other than for fencing.^[1] It is also used as a term that epitomises the "kiwi bloke" as someone who can turn their hand to anything.
The Waikato Museum runs an art award named after the wire.^[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_8_wire

There has even been a book written about this, showing that it meant that a person was ingenious, had good thinking abilities, able to fix anything up.

No 8 Wire - The Best of Kiwi Ingenuity
by Jon Bridges & David Downs
Hodder Moa Beckett 2000

http://www.techhistory.co.nz/Articles/No8Wire%20Review.html

So it's application to house sitting?  As I said in my first blog, it means that anyone house sitting has a 'can-do' attitude, can fix things if necesarry, has a bit of nouse, can use their noggin and work things out.

And this is a huge advantage. Of course it's possible to call an electrician to change a lightbulb, you can call a plumber to stop the water running down the back of the loo, (all it really takes is to unhook the top of the cistern and flick the levers inside), and it's also possible to call in a builder to replace a nail or screw. 

On the other hand, these little jobs are the sort of thing most people can do themselves, and if you've never done them, just a little thought will soon have the problem fixed.  If you can fix these sorts of problems, then you can use a bit of number 8 wire.

You need an adventurous heart and number 8 wire.

House sitting! Anyone can do this, but to be successful you need an adventurous heart and some number 8 wire.

The adventurous heart is to get you on the road in the first place. You need commitment, to stick to an agreement. You need enough confidence to go to strange places and live in someone elses home. You need a love of animals, because you can bet your boots you will meet animals of all shapes and sizes, and all with tails. And lets face it, the animals know that once they have been bathed and smell a little less doggy, then the only thing to do is roll in the sand and get filthy again.

The number 8 wire is to fix things. Generally something will need fixing. The toilet will overflow, the washing machine will have a hissy fit, the garage door will jam, and the dog will probably eat something he found and chuck up on the carpet. The number 8 wire ensures  you are a bit of a fixer upper and have the confidence to face the unexpected.

However - once you have your adventurous heart and piece of number 8 wire, you are in for a treat. You will meet some wonderful people, (and one or two who are a bit odd), you will see parts of Australia you have never seen before, and as you will probably house sit for several weeks or months in the one place, you will have the opportunity to get in some serious sightseeing at your own pace and with free accommodation thrown in.

We have been house sitting for quite a while now, and this blog is to give you a rundown on the good, the bad and the ugly (of which there is little) aspects of house sitting.

Read on, come back, and by all means post a reply.