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Montboucher-sur-Jabron to Anduze through the Ardèche
We left Monboucher-sur-Jabron this morning at 10:40. Without any finite goal, we traverse Montelimar and happen to pass the boulangerie (baker) from yesterday. So we make a short stop there to admire all the pastries they have. We let several people go before us, just to have more time to drool over all the beautiful…
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Les Trois Becs, Via ferrata de Collias, and more
We arrived at Monboucher-sur-Jabron on Thursday evening and spent 10 days there with Jeremie, Christophe’s brother. We had thought to spend a lot of time at our laptops, working, but they turned out to be action packed days. Of course we did work, but not as much as planned. We visited lovely little villages and…
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Visiting the Cadre Noir in Saumur
Independant of each other, we both have had a wish to visit the Cadre Noir in Saumur for many, many years. Since Saint-Jean-de-Sauves is only one hour from Saumur, our stay here is an excellent opportunity to finally make our wishes come true. We had seen on the website that there is the possibility of…
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A story of red bricks, figs, honey and bagpipes
After saying goodbye to the family in Lubersac, we went south to visit Brive la Gaillarde and Collonges la Rouge. They are not far from Lubersac, but we hadn’t had time to visit during our stay, because we were so engrossed with “our” horses and the ones in Pompadour. Before leaving the area, we wanted…
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Summary of our house sit in Lubersac
We loved house- and pet sitting in Lubersac! From the moment we arrived, we felt at home there. With everything and everybody: the place, the house, the surroundings. And more importantly: the people and the animals. If Siobhan and Craig and the girls had decided to stay away longer, we would have happily stayed on.…
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We’ll be spending next spring on Tenerife!
This morning, we received a message through THS from Karen in Tenerife. Earlier this year, she’d had a listing on the site, looking for house sitters. We had been in touch with her at that time, but she had decided to try workaway instead of THS, so it didn’t work out. Workaway: where volunteers and…
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A day filled with horse activities
It was 10 o’clock by the time we had taken care of all the animals (and ourselves) and headed for the boys’ pasture to get Cello. We’ve taken to calling the pasture where Cello and Tango live the boys’ pasture, the one where Failte, Galaxy and Melle live the girls’ pasture, and the one in…
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Miraculous resurrection of a donkey
Last Tuesday, we received two messages through THS. One from the system informing us that our second house sit in Indre is cancelled, and one from Ann, explaining that they had found Rintintin (one of their two donkeys) dead in the field. The remaining donkey, Joseph, was terribly upset, as were Ann and John. They…
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Summary of our house sit in Indre
We spent two wonderful weeks in Ann and John’s house in Indre. Honestly, they have a beautiful house. With two hectares of land surrounding it and a fabulous view across the hills. We took all our meals outdoors, we swam nearly everyday in the pool and we very much enjoyed watching the dogs play. The…
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Our banking blues have finally ended 🙂
Yesterday, our banking blues finally ended. No thanks to HSBC, for we haven’t heard from them in a really long time. In my desperation, I got in touch with employees of HSBC through LinkedIn. One of them tried to help me. She gave me the name and email address of a Jane Doe who works…
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Visiting a magnetiser and site-seeing Montmorillon
Christophe has been suffering on and off of pain in his shoulder and neck. I massage his neck regularly, which helps for a while, but the pain always returns. And there’s not much I can do for his shoulder, because the pain is located to deep. He has visited several specialist, but none of them…
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Photo exposition “Valorisons l’abeille et l’apiculture”
As we drove through the village on the day of our arrival, now 12 days ago, we noticed large photographs of bees in the village. Yesterday, we found out that there is currently an exposition about bees and bee keeping here in the village. It’s an initiative of several partners, Véto-pharma amongst them, to educate the…
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Mucking out the donkey’s shelter
When Ann introduced us to the donkeys and their care [link to start of house sit Indre], she took us to their field. There’s a huge tree trunk in there where we sat down and waited for Rintintin to come to us. Joseph is very shy of people, so he kept his distance. Ann showed…
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When opportunity knocks, open that door with all your paws!
After lunch, we had Broyés du Poitou for dessert. We bought it because Christophe has memories of the specialty from his childhood. So when we saw it on offer, he couldn’t resist the temptation and bought one. Unfortunately, it wasn’t like he remembered, so half of it was still on the table when Christophe went…
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The start of our pet- and house sit in Indre
Ann has given us directions to their house, which we find without trouble. As with most hamlets, it’s very small, which doesn’t leave much margin for error. As we park the car next to a large hedge, a big gate opens to reveal Ann. She invites us into the garden, where we are greeted by…