Temporary Shelter

Palazzo Versace, Gold Coast

2011-10-11T06:55:00.005+09:30

I am still in the same housesit and have been there for more than two and a half years now! So, I thought I would expand this dormant blog with reviews of one night holidays. Given I am housesitting, it is difficult to get away for any period of time. The owner comes home every few weeks for a few days - which gives me a bit of a window of opportunity...

I mamanged to find a discounted deal on a night at the Palazzo Versace on the Gold Coast. The over the top extravagence of this hotel is a lot of fun. It is of course more an aspirational place than the real thing - what those who are not quite in the upper echelons imagine the luxurious life to be. But that was absolutely fine by me and I enjoyed every moment of it

I invited a few friends to partake of the high tea that they offered while I was there. The wait service for the high tea, we agreed, needed a bit of polishing . But the food was really nice and so was the setting. My room was fabulous with a wooden parquet floor, a marble bathroom with separate rooms for the loo, the shower and the huge spa bath - which I have to say was fantastic. The gold trimmed tap filled the spa up in no time. There was a small balcony overlooking the huge 'lagoon' pool and a tiled fountain wall. You could have the sliding glass doors open wide and the room didn't smell of disinfectant - unlike many hotel rooms.

The bed was incredibly comfortable as was the pillow (70% duck feathers, 30% down). You can actually buy the pillows if you want - and people do, it seems. I'm thinking about it :-)

There were medusa head logos on everything you could lay your hands on - including a kind of embossed affair on the bottom of the glasses, on the bedheads, furniture handles, everything. The bar fridge had everything right down to the bottle of Veuve Cliquot and there were plenty of chocolate and nut snacks. Navy blue versace dressing gowns hung in the cupboard which had a light which automatically turned on when you opened it.

A good wide screen tele with lots of channels and every internet connection you can think of ( I avoided the net). The turn down service included two very kitch red lipped shaped chocolates - but I really enjoyed them :-)

I saw some spectacular fashion amongst the three weddings that were being held - all women of course. I didn't see any noteworthy style amongst the men unfortunately. There were also some pretty dodgy looking lack of fashion statements around as well... There were a lot of families staying - the central pool and Seaworld just down the road are attractions here. It is definitely not a quiet and secluded experience, but that was part of the fun.

The buffet breakfast which started at 6.30 am was superb and had everything you could think of. The 3 restaurants are pretty expensive, but there are also some restaurants in the boutique shopping centre next door - which are not much cheaper really it has to be said - but fabulous waterside settings. Check out time was a civilised 11am.

The rooms were almost 50% off on the deal I found - which is now sold out. I found it on an excellent travel deals site travelzoon if like me you are in the market for this sort of thing.

A long housesit

2009-09-23T07:00:00.006+09:30

The beautiful house I am currently occupying - the same one as in my last post - originally started as a 6 week sit, then turned into 3 months, then into a year and is now a two year housesit! These are the kind of housesits that are often used to hype housesitting, but in reality are as rare as hen's teeth. I have certainly lucked out! I mentioned in my last post that I had been hesitating over whether or not I should stay for the long term. I decided to stay on and am very glad I made the decision. Even if I am not in my inner city haunts - it is beautiful and restful here which has been helpful in allowing me to try and catch up on an enormous backlog of work.

There are no pets but as it is in the country, there are certainly lots of animals around. The current animal interaction involves two deranged magpies who spend entire days hurling themselves at their reflections in the French doors of the main bedroom and making a dreadful mess on the windows and on the verandah. I think they have a nest in one of the nearby trees and are too stupid to distinguish a reflection of themselves from a real potentially invasive bird. I put brown paper on the outside of the windows and that seems to have cured the problem.

I mentioned a cat that used to live here but which disappeared a couple of years ago when another housesitter was looking after it. But while on holiday at home (!) in August, the house owner saw it running across the road as he was driving along. He called the cat which rushed over and he took it home but it was gone again the next day - but not before he had taken numerous photos. It would appear the cat is living happily somewhere down the road hidden on acreage.

After an enormous amount of rain earlier this year, there is now no rain at all and everything is very dry.

Still housesitting!

2009-03-30T08:52:00.004+09:30

Just reading back on my last few entries, it became apparent that I have been exhibiting symptoms of housesitting burn out! Inevitable really after 34 moves in a little over 3 years - and that's not counting other trips away.

The last house was a bit of a nightmare on the insect front. Giant cockroaches in the dishwasher, a thousand ants if I dared leave a crumb on the kitchen bench top. Giant painful biting ants in the garden and (shudder) lice on the pigeons. Of course one has to expect these things in a subtropical climate - particularly now that the eight year drought has come to an end.

But what of my current circumstances? Yes, I'm still housesitting. But things are a bit different at present. I have two favourite houses, both on the north side of Brisbane. I looked after one of these for two short period in January. The old cat had died and been replaced with two very decorative and frisky white cats - barely more than kittens actually. They were a lot of fun and very pretty to look at.

I am now in my other favourite house and have been here since February. If I wish, I can stay on for the whole year. I have been hesitating a little because I am a bit of an inner city person at heart and this house is in the country on 10 acres with tank water. But it is only 35 minutes drive into the CBD and a fairly pleasant drive. Not too far to see my friends and engage in my usual activities - in particular yoga.

The house is perched on top of a hill which is surrounded on all sides by other hills. So one has the view and the space and light but feels sheltered at the same time. The house itself is a huge old queenslander with 12 foot ceilings and an 8 foot verandah arouund the entire house. There are beautiful paintings on the walls to look at which are a source of constant enjoyment. There is also a decent sized plasma TV and DVD player and an excellent stereo with an ipod dock.

For really hot weather there is a salt water pool which is just lovely to swim in. There used to be a few pets that came with the house, a cat, a dog and two tanks of lizards. The cat (an excellent cat) disappeared a couple of years ago - possibly bitten by a snake - and the dog and the lizards have been moved elsewhere by the owner who is currently living abroad. Although it took quite some getting used to being here without the company of the pets, it is actually a lot easier not having to rush home to feed them and keep them company. The lizards were fairly self sustaining providing they had an adequate supply of live crickets, but the dog and the cat needed care.

The peace and quiet of the house has been conducive to much productive thought and the beginning of organisation (!) It is also a relief just to be in one place for a decent length of time. Just before I moved here, a new and excellent flatmate moved in to my home base which also makes things generally easier and means I have the option of moving home. It has also been nice to see people I have invited out to lunch visibly relaxing in the peaceful environment.

Generously, the owner is paying electricity and phone line rental bills and wirelss broadband. This is really an exceptional opportunity amongst housesits. A lovely house for a whole year with the bills paid - what could be better? And how often do these kind of housesitting opportunities come up? Almost never, in my experience.

There have been a few maintenance issues with a broken water pump, dead envirocycle (waste water) pump and the driveway needs grading as it is seriously potholed after all the rain. None of this has been too serious and has not been too difficult to deal with. The owner also gets a lot of mail which I send to him via fedex when a sufficient quantity accumulates. A team of mowers come around every couple of weeks to deal with the exponential growth of grass occasioned by the rain and heat.

I still haven't decided whether I want to stay here for the whole year but I do seem to be settling in.

Fan tail pigeons

2008-12-29T09:41:00.004+09:30

I am looking after the large old Queenslander stately home again for a couple of weeks over Christmas. The owners have now acquired some pets - two beautiful white fantail pigeons who have their own dovecot and the free run of the garden. They look exactly like the ones in this picture. It seems the owners kept them in a netted area with the dovecote for a while until they got used to it and realised that there was no reason for them to fly away. They seem to fly off somewhere for a couple of hours in the afternoon, but apart from that they are usually walking around the garden near the dovecote or sitting on the roof nearby. They have enjoyed their new home so much that they have produced a fledgeling which is now three weeks old.

In the last few days this rather ugly little pigeon has been sitting at the door of its dovecot space looking out. Yesterday while I was on my way out for a walk I noticed it walking around on the lawn under the watchful eye of its parents. When I came back I found it sitting under a bush - not very safe at all. After phone calls to the owners and to the pigeon breeder it was determined that the bird needed to be put back in its nest.

I went and found a large step ladder in the shed and after some experimentation got it on level ground. Armed with a teatowel I approached the little chick with some trepidation. It got up and ran away but not very far and fortunately it didn't really struggle once I got hold of it and carefully placed it back in its rather scabrous nest. I noticed small black mites (lice?) crawling over it. The pigeon breeder gave me the name of a place 'Bernie's Produce' where I can go and buy some pigeon lice powder. So I will go out today and procure some of this.

It seems the fledgeling will keep jumping out of its nest for the next few days and I will have to keep putting it back in until it starts to learn how to fly properly. I am hoping that it might take a break from these attempts until the owners get back at the end of the week.

The other slight disaster yesterday involved my topping up the water level in the pool which was getting low. I put the hose on at 4 pm on Sunday - the Council designated pool topping up time but then completely forgot about it until at midnight when I suddenly remembered and leapt out of bed. The pool is now very full, but at least it didn't overflow. I hope this water usage isn't going to cause a problem. Better than a broken filter from having too low a water level I suppose! The joys of housesitting - and probably homeownership I would say. I'm glad I don't own a house.

There are no screens on this house and I have been eaten alive by mosquitos after the return of Brisbane's tropical climate after 8 years of drought. I might stop taking multi vitamin tablets until I move out as I have noticed that when I don't take them I don't get bitten.

The house is a really lovely place in summer, much better than in freezing winter in spite of the mosquitos and the necessity to keep a close eye on the garden. Most of the garden is taken care of by an automatic sprinkling system linked to the rainwater tanks and bore water. But there are numbers of potplants and staghorns on trees that need attention.

Three years on...

2008-10-22T09:48:00.002+09:30

I’m back to the house of mad parrot infamy that I first housesat three years ago. This is the first luxury house I sat and the first time I had to deal with dogs and birds. I can’t believe it’s that long! One of the dogs has died in the interim, the staffy is three years older and has had his balls cut off after they developed a tumour and the parrot is a bit quieter since its stroke – 3 years on. Nonetheless she does like attention and having her beak stroked and being given bits of veggies. She has a much bigger cage now – which is much better. The fish in the outside pond have long since fallen prey to visiting kingfishers so there is now a tank inside the house with a Siamese fighting fish called Fang. There is a mirror on the tank so the fish spends a lot of time beating itself up. So the pet situation is not quite as full on thank goodness! For all that it’s still a very labour intensive house.

The day I moved in I made the mistake of inviting somebody over who completely overexcited the dog and it ran itself into exhaustion and sore paws. One paw has some of the skin worn off it. On Monday the dog limped around stiffly and licked his front paws endlessly. He is a lot better today and although he is still licking one of his paws – it seems to be a bit better and I was able to take him out for a short walk. Last night the poor dog had another crisis when a big thunderstorm hit. The dog is thunderphobic and goes into a complete panic meltdown during storms. The owners had left me with some tranquillisers for these situations and I gave him one as soon as I saw the ominous clouds and heard the low rumblings. It didn’t seem to make a lot of difference and the dog hyperventilated and trembled for about 3 hours and stayed glued to me. It was a bit annoying as I enjoy thunderstorms and this house is on a hill overlooking the bush and the river with a fantastic view of proceedings.

The dog has a complex diet of kangaroo mince, rice, pasta and vegetables and dog biscuits. The owners decided to change vets after their previous vet scoffed at the rice and vegetable component which takes a bit of an effort to cook up. I cooked up a batch last time I was here but I think there are enough supplies there to last the distance this time.

I had to get rid of another serious chemical infestation when I moved in. A green thing attached to the loo bowel, an ‘airfreshener’ on a shelf in the loo. In the basin area outside the loo was a perfumed candle and a jar with some kind of toxic liquid and a set of sticks that looked like incense sticks soaking it up. There was another jar with sticks next to the television. There are also a number of perfumed candles in the dining room and sitting room but I have left these where they are as there are too many of them and I just keep the verandah door open while I am around and about. The house is absolutely spotless so there is no need for all this junk.

The sitting room has a huge plate glass wall overlooking the river and a lovely 50 inch Panasonic plasma TV with a top of the range Yamaha surround sound system under the television. When I was last here, there was a Rank Arena CRT TV and an array of speakers around the room. I remember the owners talking about their prospective purchase of the Yamaha system. Foxtel - almost the full package - is connected to the sound system so I can play the radio stations with the television switched off.

Back to the house. The pets aren’t the only things that are labour intensive. The owners feed the wild birds – so I have to put seed in a feeder tray for the rosellas and the sulphur crested cockatoos. They also mix up some kind of powdered milk concoction but I haven’t got around to doing this yet. They also throw kangaroo mince at the butcher birds, currawongs and magpies – so the birds are continually hassling you for food by hopping up and down outside the kitchen window and tapping on it with their beaks or if I have left the screen door open for the dog, some of them actually come into the kitchen.

I don’t really approve of feeding wild life. It means they are less able to find their own food and they become tame which is dangerous both for them and humans. Not to mention the mess of discarded birdseed and bird droppings which I will have to clean up.

I spent half an hour this morning cleaning the pool of bark and leaves and fixing up the kreepy krawly after last night’s storm. A simple cover on the pool would avoid these problems and save water.

There is a complicated and paranoid system of locks on everything – with the keys not working particularly well in the locks, so this is all a bit irritating along with the burglar alarm. I don’t like alarms much – I am always worried they might unexpectedly go off when I am setting them or turning them off.

There is a large garden. I’m so glad it rained last night! The owners are very active retirees – hence all the labour they create around the house.

The dog is currently sitting at my feet obsessively licking its paws. I have noticed in general that terriers seem to do this – it seems to be an anxiety thing in most cases.

For all its obessiveness and regimentation, the house is beautifully organised which makes it easy to live. It has a lovely kitchen and one of the best ovens I have cooked with. It’s a Miele. The benches are made of sandstone.

It’s the perfect spot for marking large numbers of essays!

The dogs

2008-10-01T11:31:00.004+09:30

This is the last full day in the current housesit. I move out tomorrow. It has been quite nice – not too far from work, in a fairly interesting area, a small and basic but modern sunny and comfortable house. The dogs are starting to get a bit annoying. The golden retriever/Labrador cross is completely neurotic and whenever I get home it barks hysterically, whimpers and then when I let it into the house it races around at full speed after having picked up toys in its mouth from the toy box. The other dog – a fairly solid silky terrier, staffy something cross follows suit. In the mornings they are up at 4.30am – 5 pm with the Labrador going through the full whimpering, putting a toy in its mouth routine if I get up to go to the loo. At that point I close my bedroom door as otherwise they both start jumping on my bed and the Labrador is a big dog. At about 6am I get up to open the door so they can run out and then 6.30 – 7pm they get their breakfast.

Last night while watching television, the golden retriever wanted to jump on my lap and lick my face – yuck. It does this fairly frequently. As it is a very large dog and as I am not that keen on having my face slobbered on all over a bit of a struggle usually ensues. Yesterday evening the smaller dog wanted to join in as well and jumped up on the couch preparing to jump on to me. As soon as I finish my dinner a whole routine of the little dog sitting up on its hind legs and begging and the other dog starting to bounce around starts. They want the bones from the lamb chops, so I have to get up and do the washing up immediately to stop the harassment. I don’t know how people can live like this year in and year out. It’s exhausting.

The garden is huge as well, it took me more than half an hour just to water the whole thing on Sunday – I was using the rainwater tanks. The garden is mostly in pots – I think for two reasons: to save it from the scrub turkeys whom I have to feed with corn cobs and wild bird seed every day and also it is on a steep slope with a drainage problem, prone to large volumes of water turning into a rushing stream when it is raining heavily.

I have to clean up and pack today – one of my very least favourite housesitting tasks. I’ll have to put the dogs out in the garden while I am doing this. They follow me everywhere and the golden retriever starts getting hysterical if I move around too much. But overall this sit hasn't been too bad - not like the nightmare the last one was.

I must remember to restore the chemical infestation to the bathroom. All the 'airfresheners' are in a bucket covered by another bucket in the under the house area. Even so you can still smell them when you are near the buckets.

Chlorinators

2008-09-27T06:26:00.004+09:30

This housesit continues peacefully. One incident however of course! The pool filter started beeping and a light flashing saying there was no waterflow and the chlorinator was on hold. A phone call to the owners however revealed that one of the wires coming out of the chlorinator cell had vibrated loose - which apparently it does frequently. Easily fixed!

Eco friendly house

2008-09-23T08:11:00.000+09:30

This is quite an interesting house. It is located in one of the more trendy areas of Brisbane. It is a 3 bedroom house on stilts built on a large sloping block of almost an acre with a large under the house area. The entire house was renovated recently in a basic but clean and modern style, but the owners decided not to put a dishwasher in the new kitchen. There is also only one bathroom – no ensuite. I couldn’t find the computer at first – but there it is in one of the bedrooms. I don’t think I have looked after a house without a computer. Usually everybody has at least a decrepit old PC somewhere, or a laptop – even if they have put it away or hidden it in a tiny locked room as was the case in one house.

The pool is at the front of the house with a high stone fence onto the street protecting all from prying eyes. The garden at the back is on a large sloping block – half an acre I would say - and is the sort of garden that has lots of native plants and composting arrangements and a bushy area which is not cultivated. There are a couple of large rainwater tanks under the house for watering. There are also a number of scrub turkeys which the owners want me to feed every morning.

The front of the house has a decent collection of plants around the pool as well, many of them in pots. The owners very proudly showed me a dozen or so caterpillars munching away on a couple of the bushes. They noted with disappointment that sometimes some of the caterpillars would get eaten by birds or knocked off their perches by the dogs. That has to be a bit of a first as well. They call it their butterfly breeding program and they knew what sort of butterflies the caterpillars were going to turn into.

So an eco friendly set up which is somewhat at odds with the chemical infestation in the bathroom.

The bedroom I am sleeping in is apparently frequently occupied by their grandson and is decked out with ghastly football posters, but this is offset by a sliding glass door onto a high balcony and a side window. I can have the door open with the screen door locked at night and the sun comes in in the morning. There is a nice view over the back garden and trees.

The house is right under the flight path and I noticed the roar of not so distant traffic started around 4.30 am this morning, although the house itself is on a quiet street.

Another thing I need to add to my list of things to bring to housesits is a bath plug. New baths have 40mm plugs, old baths have 50mm plugs. There is a nice bath here and it might be easier to clean than the shower recess.

2 dogs and a garden

2008-09-22T21:32:00.002+09:30

I've just moved in to my new housesit. Although I wasn't really looking forward to it - it is actually rather nice. The two dogs haven't been as boisterous as I anticipated from my last two visits while the owners were here. They are now both asleep on their beds in the main bedroom (it is 9 pm).

I had to get rid of a chemical infestation, however. I got rid of the loo attachment (the plastic thing that sits on the lip of the bowl and turns the water blue) but still found the smell was just as strong some time later; I then found 2 airfresheners on top of the cupboard. A few hours later, still no change, and then I found another one on the floor behind the loo. The smell is dying down a bit now, so I think I have got them all. One house I was in had one of these 'air fresheners' sitting on a table in the bedroom and it had actually rotted the wood. It took me ages to find it. I have no idea why people think that these are doing anything other than poisoning the atmosphere in their home and quite possibly causing who knows what cancers down the track! They all smell the same - utterly toxic - no matter what scent they claim to be.

It took a while to work out why the sound on the television which was being fed through the stereo wasn't working properly, but once I had figured it out, I sat down to an episode of Wire in the blood. Unfortunately I think the series has totally lost it and has become predictable and exploitative in terms of its treatment of the main character and attempts to shock the audience with bad human behaviour. It simply doesn't match up to the earlier seasons - which had a genuine spark which made you think...

The weather in Brisbane is unseasonably summery at present. Thunderstorms without much rain the last two nights.. Summer clothes haven't even hit the shops yet.

The necessity of organisation

2008-09-19T03:23:00.002+09:30

One thing that housesitting requires is organisation. I am continually sorting through my things, making sure I have put them where I can find them and throwing stuff out if it is no longer useful. Otherwise one ends up with too much stuff to carry around and spending too much time trying to find things every time you move house.

Home base has to be kept very organised as well. When I started this housesitting venture, I had to rationalise a 3 bedroom unit so that all my personal belongings fitted into one room and the rest of the flat was flatmate friendly, with items organised for overseas students who had not been able to bring much with them to Australia. It’s a bit like running a guesthouse in some ways. Every time a flatmate moves out and before a new one moves in, I have to make sure the necessary equipment (kitchen stuff, linen) is all organised, old stuff thrown out and new stuff acquired, the flat cleaned and things repaired and maintained. The latter is not particularly easy with landlords who rate property maintenance as probably last on their list. Nonetheless it is still better than having to deal with real estate agents!

I am looking forward to a few months at home. It will also give me the time and the space to organise various long-standing tasks such as sorting out my papers and a whole host of other things. I will be able to spread out over the 3 rooms and put things in various piles and sort through them and I won’t have to work around a flatmate. It is nice being at home with cupboard and drawer space rather than living out of suitcases and remembering the thing you want to use or wear is actually at home.

Flat sharing and housesitting are two things which very definitely have to go together and my experience over the last few years has done nothing but confirm this.

The cat and the fish

2008-09-17T08:47:00.003+09:30

A few more brief comments about that last sit.

The cat was like a lovely soft pillow to pat - all that lack of muscle tone and fat! The townhouse was 3 stories and if you were out of view and the cat wasn't sleeping it would let out a single disconsolate miaow. So I would say 'I'm up here or down here' and sure enough the cat would trot up or down the stairs to find me. Rather entertaining. She was also fascinated by the noise of bath water going down the plug hole and would stare at the drain in the middle of the bathroom floor as it went down.

As for the fish, the gold fish would practically throw themselves out of the bowl with tail wagging and mouth gulping activity to get your attention when you went near their bowl. There were two big gold fish which would swim around almost glued together and one small one which they ignored entirely. The tropical fish would also aggregate near where you were standing next to the tank and follow you when you moved. When I was watching television they would move up to the end near the television and give every appearance of watching as well.

Brain music

2008-09-17T06:29:00.002+09:30

I have a friend who has sent me some excellent emails on various technical aspects of music. I posted some of his observations last year on this blog. I am trying to persuade him to set up his own blog. But in the interim here is another entry this time on some 'brain music' links I sent him.

http://www.brainmusictreatment.com/page_2_3.html
http://www.neuropsychiatryreviews.com/sep02/npr_sep02_brainmusic.html

It is possible to convert brain waves into music, but only by making conscious choices to map certain frequencies to other frequencies. Brain waves are all in the 0 to 30 hertz range (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2004/SamanthaCharles.shtml)) and human hearing is in the 20 to 20,000 hertz range. Unless brain waves just happen to have relationships that correspond to the relationships between pitches in the western major or minor diatonic scale (extremely doubtful), the creation of what most middle-class westerners would call 'relaxing' music would require quite deliberate mapping - introducing myriad unscientific and culturally skewed choices. Isaac Newton ran into this problem when he unsuccessfully attempted to map the frequency of colours in the light spectrum to the diatonic scale (the reason we say there are seven colours in the rainbow - but that's another story).

I have assumed that they are not creating these cds in some sort of non-standard tuning (e.g. just intonation), since western culture trains us to be 'unrelaxed' by anything that is not in a major or minor diatonic scale.

Aside from the hertz mapping and tuning problems, there is also the problem of timbre. Brain waves have no timbre, so saying that brain music sounds like classical piano music is no more valid than saying it sounds like fingernails-on-blackboard music. Just more culturally-conditioned middle-class western preconceptions about 'good' music being sold as pop-neuroscience. More like pseudoscience.

Music can be relaxing and beneficial, and individuals will find some forms of music more relaxing than others - we all know that to be the case. And there seems to be strong evidence that music has a real capacity to alter brain waves by causing the brain to synchronise with the rhythms and attempt to 'guess' what comes next, resulting in that lost-in-the-moment sensation in which the past and future momentarily cease to exist. But this just looks like a scheme to convince people to pay hundreds of dollars for a 'custom' cd of tinkly new-age piano muzak. I suspect that the folks buying this stuff would get just as much out a cheap new-age cd from JB.

There is an interesting post about the site on http://postevolution.blogspot.com/2007/09/brain-music-treatment-mood-organ-is.html

Enough anti-new-age ranting. Must get back to my 87 day long piano music.

Should housesitters pay for utilities?

2008-09-10T10:16:00.002+09:30

I posted this to a discussion board on a housesitting site where a discussion was raging over whether housesitters should pay for utilities or pay a bond and so on.

I have been housesitting more or less full time for more than 3 years now in South East Queensland. I expect home owners to pay for utilities, phone line rental (but not calls) and also if available - foxtel (cable tv) and broadband internet.

There is a lot of work and responsibility involved in housesitting with the pets, garden, pool and other tasks around the house. Some houses are more labour intensive than others and in some houses I have effectively worked 3 hours a day or more just looking after it - pets can be very time consuming for example. I haven't looked after one pet who hasn't kept me awake or woken me up at some stage at night. One also has to organise one's lifestyle and timetable around the pets' requirements.

I think the payment of the utilities by home owners, plus broadband and cable (if the owner has these) is a fair exchange for all this work and responsibility. I did one 3 month sit early on when I was inexperienced and agreed to pay the utilities. I felt really ripped off. It wasn't a nice house, the pet was horrible and things kept breaking down and having to be attended to.

I would consider paying utilities for a sit of more than 3 months but even so would think carefully about it and about what kind of work I would be doing on an ongoing basis to look after the house and pets. I think negotiating part payment of the utilities would be appropriate for these long term sits - particularly if there were pets involved. I would also draw the line at paying a deposit - unless it was a really fabulous house and a long sit (eg 6 months or more). Even then I would think very carefully about it.

As for the phone, I use a phone card - except for local calls.

As I am housesitting and have a full time (but flexible) job - I only housesit within ready travel distance of my job and I have the luxury of being able to vet houses before I take them on. At the very least I will go and look at the house from the outside if it sounds like a possibility and see if it looks okay. I have found that once you meet the owners in their home you are more or less locked in at that point so I assess the situation carefully before I get to the point of actually going around to visit.

I must say I am lot more choosy now about which houses I agree to take on than I was at the beginning. After a few houses I didn't like, I decided it really wasn't worth it and now will only do ones I think I will enjoy rather than merely survive. I have got quite good at sussing out what will work and what won't. (The sit I have just done was obviously not a good choice however!) But even the best ones have drawbacks. The weight of responsibility for somebody else's home and pets in itself can be pretty tiring quite apart from all the actual work you do to maintain the house, garden and pool etc and care for the pets.

Burnout

2008-09-09T07:03:00.003+09:30

I left the housesit last night before the owners returned. What a relief when they rang and told me they were home. They were grateful, but not grateful enough in my opinion! The cat would snore when it was sleeping on my bed as well. It is so good to be back home to my nice clean organised flat that doesn’t stink – except of new paint. The outside of the block was repainted recently.

I am reminded of the 1968 British TV series ‘Oh Brother’. The protagonist was a bumbling young novice monk, who also felt it was his duty to steer the older monks back onto the right path. Hence he would confiscate their whisky and cigars and with resignation would drink the whisky and smoke the cigars as penance, as he liked neither. Other people’s relaxing home environments have the same effect on me. The owner of the last housesit said she found the fish relaxing. All I could see was the prospect of cleaning the tanks and the possibility of things going horribly wrong. Some owners swear by their gardens – I just see an endless vista of struggle trying to keep the plants alive and neat through watering and weeding. As for pets – having to adhere to their feeding and walking timetables and their need for companionship (eg snoring, bed hogging cats wanting to sleep on your bed all night) is hard work. I can only ask – why?

So, you may ask – what is my own ideal home environment? A nice flat or apartment on an upper story in a small quiet block, with a view, lots of light, zero plants and zero pets and with a thick carpet underfoot. A place I can come home to, collapse on the couch, turn on the TV, watch DVDs and put a quick and easy dinner on to cook. A place I can work quietly for hours on end without interruptions. A place with nice walks in the park or beside the river when I get fed up with working. A place close to restaurants, and other activities and not too far from work. This actually pretty much describes my home base. Now I just need the money to be able to afford the rent on my own on an ongoing basis and have regular trips away to the coast.

Three more days to go

2008-09-06T07:28:00.000+09:30

The fish filter pump in the tropical tank has started to look decidedly shaky in the last couple of days. Hopefully it will hold out till the owners’ return Monday evening. It is erratically spurting out bubbles. I took it apart and I think the little plastic mechanism that spins around is not moving freely, but I can’t work out a way to fix it. I am not going to clean that tank before the owners return but I might clean the large goldfish bowl and filter tomorrow,

The cat is still not well but getting better. She needs lots of pats and I have to practically hand feed her to get her to eat. She doesn’t like the new food and is not even terribly keen on her favourite tuna: that, I can only give her tastes of – as she needs to be on an anti-allergy diet. The vet’s discharge sheet notes “cats should not go for more than 48 hours without food as they can develop hepatic lipidososis’. As I don’t want that to happen, patient patting and showing her the food is the order of the day. She purrs madly when I pat her and show her the food but won’t necessarily eat any.

This will definitely go down in my annals as one of my more difficult sits.

Hanging in there by a thread

2008-09-05T10:25:00.000+09:30

This has to be right up there in the problematic housesit stakes that's for sure. The electrician came yesterday and I forked out $300 of my own money for him to track down and fix a shonkily constructed powerpoint that was shorting out under the sink.

I got the cat home last night but she threw up again and is still clearly not well. The owners are going to be up for around $750 on that – more, if I have to take her back in again. The cat probably has inflammatory bowel disease or pancreatitis. X rays showed a lot of fat around the organs of the abdomen which, of course, leads to health problems in both cats and humans. So, long term diet for the cat.

I’ll be out of here on Monday and I have to say I can’t wait. It could be a really nice place without all these problems. When I originally looked at it – I thought hmmm somewhat scungy in presentation but it is only for two weeks and it is so close to work and it is a modern place. But what has occurred merely confirms what I have found in the past. If the place is not quite up to par, the possibility of things going wrong is high. Not that they haven’t gone wrong in the really nice places as well, with fighting cats, disconnected phones due to Telstra’s failure to recognise bill payment and so on, but usually other things are okay in the house. In this one it has been a constant string of problems.

I have decided that next year I am going to take a break – back home to my rental flat and no flatmate. This will eat up the savings I have made this year by flat sharing, but I am tired out and need a break from the constant responsibility, travel through Brisbane’s now horrible traffic and the constant packing, unpacking and cleaning, pets and gardens. If however, I can find a couple of long term inner city sits I will continue. So I am advertising and waiting to see. If nothing comes up, I will be quite content to stay at home.

I am not particularly looking forward to the next sit, it has two very active dogs and an enormous garden but it will only be for 10 days. On the plus side, the house seems fairly organised and is clean and the owners seem to have their act together. It is in a nice neighbourhood as well – a new one that I haven’t tried before.

Later…
I fed the cat this morning with the weight management biscuits the vet gave me. She didn’t eat a lot and is clearly still not feeling too well but at least she hasn’t thrown up again. She has been sleeping curled up as close as possible against me on the bed while I engage in a marathon clear up session of my email backlog on my laptop. Email was so exciting when it first appeared in the 1990s – now it has become so often a burdensome chore.

It is pouring with rain today which is really nice. I don’t have to water the garden and one can have a rest from continual sunny extraversion.

When housesits go bad...

2008-09-03T07:27:00.003+09:30

Just as I was congratulating myself on having a nice solid cat that didn't spew everywhere, the vomit hit the fan (not to put too fine a point upon it). On Saturday two things happened, all the powerpoints in the kitchen decided to go dead and the circuit breaker wouldn't turn back on and the cat started throwing up profusely over the carpet, the tiles and the back deck.

I texted the owners about the powerpoints - said nothing about the cat, not wanting to worry them on their holidays. I got a reply to my text at 2am and decided I would reply so I could sort things out then and there. Amid a flurry of texting back and forth the cat leapt off the bed and starting vomiting all over the carpet. One of those housesitting moments...

The owners hadn't left me with any details for a vet - although I had asked and had been told the cat didn't really need a vet - so I took the cat to the same surgery I had taken the infamous Bargearse. I had been impressed with this surgery as they had no less than 11 cats wandering around. Clearly they loved cats. The clinic also happened to be near this housesit and was open on Sundays. The poor cat has now been at the vets for three nights.

I mentioned in one of my previous blog entries the odd personality change in the cat from bold and friendly and annoying, to nervous wreck creeping around the house with an irrational fear of my empty shoes. Clearly it was starting to get sick at that point. Two days after this change it leapt off my bed early in the morning after half an hour of harrassing me for breakfast and promptly threw up all over the carpet.

When the vets started mentioning X rays and possible surgery for the cat, I decided things were serious enough for the owners to be notified. It seems that the cat had a similar episode some months ago. I was relieved to hear this as it meant that it I hadn't done something to bring this on. The owners also rang the vet and sorted out billing etc.

Re the power - consultation with members of the body corporate, a friend of the owners brought no joy. The owners didn't have the name of their electrician. I raced home to my flat through the riverfire crowds on Saturday night (the annual fireworks display on the river in Brisbane) and picked up a couple of extension chords so I could continue to supply power to the fridge and the goldfish bowl filter. It took ages to get through the traffic.

I rang the electrician yesterday and they suggested that I unplug every appliance in the house and try again. That didn't work so I will have to call an electrician in.

I have mentioned this house is none too clean. A couple of days ago I noticed a suspicious sickly fermenting smell emanating from the kid's room (which I don't go into). Investigation revealed a waste paper basket crammed full of old milo milk containers and various other chocolate bar wrappers etc and who knows what else - rubber gloves and plastic garbage bags ensued.

House sitting equipment (update)

2008-08-31T15:23:00.005+09:30

I posted a version of this earlier but have decided to update it and make it more general.

When one is housesitting as a way of life one has to do things to keep oneself orientated and functional. There is also the issue of not wanting to damage things in the house you are sitting and the fact that, people simply don't always have the stuff you need to organise yourself efficiently. I am lucky enought to have a home base (a shared flat) where I can pick up and drop off stuff. If I was housesitting overseas - obviously I wouldn't have the luxury of being able to carry all this kit! Here is my list:

Some of this depends on whether or not the house actually has the items

Kitchen equipment
Dish rack. Even if you have a dishwasher you still need a dishrack. I never put saucepans in the dishwasher as they don't really wash. I'm surprised by how many people don't have a dishrack but I suppose people must just put their dishes and pots on the drainer next to the sink - but that system doesn't work very well.

Blender for early morning smoothies, vegetable peeler, sharp knife, cutting board - so I can keep the owner's board and knives in pristine condition.

Dishwashing detergent - so I don't suffer chemical overload using one with perfume I am not used to. The same goes for laundry soap powder.

Rubber gloves for washing up and cleaning.
Sponges, cloths etc.

Bottle opener. When I have people over for lunch I usually need to open a bottle of wine (or two). I have found that the houses I am looking after often have very non functional bottle openers. One house had a 'fish' bottle opener which could only be used with difficulty. One of my visitors, after opening the second bottle, left the cork screwed so far onto the corkscrew section that I had to go and buy a pair of plyers to separate cork from corkscrew.

Salt, pepper, tea, coffee, sugar.

Audio-visual
Cordless phone if the house doesn't have one or if the phone is too grotty. I need to be able to walk around or lounge on the couch while I am on the phone.

Music. Music is very important for my well being! If the homeowner has foxtel I will just listen to the foxtel lounge and cafe radio stations. I will only do this if they have a separate amplifier as I don't want to cause screen burn by having the TV on all the time. If I can't do this, I will bring my ipod and use an FM transmitter to play music on their stereo, or a cable if they have an auxiliary jack, or failing that, my own portable speakers.

VCR/DVD player. If the house has neither one of these I bring my VCR which allows for taping of programs. I have been considering investing in a portable DVD player but will wait till I get a house where I need it.

Laptop. I will often use the owner's computer just for checking email if they are linked up to broadband. I have my own dial up account which is of course transportable from house to house and is good for when no internet is available.

Extension chords, powerboard, double adaptors

Garden
I only bring these items when needed: watering can for the garden, gardening gloves.

General maintenance
string, sticky tape and masking tape, plyers, screwdriver,

Bed and bath
Mattress protector. I don't like putting my sheets on the bare mattress. The mattress protector has a double function of protecting the mattress and me from a foreign mattress!

Sheets and towels. Then I have my own 100% cotton items and don't have to worry about a huge wash at the end of the sit.

Pillows - one's own pillows are always the most comfy.

Blankets - one knows where these have been and they are right warmth.

Bedside lamp. There have been some houses which don't have bedside lamps.

Pet equipment
Dog food bowls. One house had such miniscule plastic bowls which kept sliding everywhere and slopping the food over the sides that I invested in two proper dog bowls to make my life easier.

Kitty litter. One house had a cat who would often stay in at night - but no outside access and no kitty litter. It didn't actually use the kitty litter I set up however. In another house, I set up a kitty litter at night on the front verandah so the cat didn't have to go out and be beaten up by the toms next door.

Disinfectant, rubber gloves, dog poo bags, urine-off cleaner. These speak for themselves really!

Retractable dog leads. With unruly dogs not trained to walk properly on the leash these have come in handy.

Pet brush for brushing animals if there are no brushes in the house.

Pet toys - very occasionally. These usually don't work.

I tend move stuff in and out when the home owner is not around. I have noticed that owners don't like it when they see you arrive with a whole heap of bags!

Close to work

2008-08-29T12:27:00.004+09:30

More shock and horror! Another blog entry! I am doing my first new housesit for the year after a string of repeats. This one is a lovely 3 story townhouse about 20 minutes walk from work. I have still actually been driving in to save time and to carry heavy items. But not having to drive through Brisbane’s stressful traffic jams has made a huge difference.

To digress slightly here – until about 2 or 3 years ago, Brisbane used to be such a relaxing easy-going city until everybody from Sydney and Melbourne discovered it and decided to move here. It would seem people are moving here at the rate of 1,000 people per week. This has led to a mad frenzy of building, heavy traffic and also to drastic depletion of the water supply in a time of drought. I myself am originally from Sydney and after much peregrination elsewhere moved here in 1989. It was a bit of a wilderness back then, with only one or two cafés, numerous milk bars and carveries instead and a small number of rather mediocre restaurants which would inevitably close at 9 pm.

Around 2000 the city reached a perfect equilibrium of relaxed urbanisation. I remember thinking at the time that if only it could stay just at that point things would be perfect. No such luck. One of the reasons I liked Brisbane was that it wasn’t a big city – I have lived in plenty of those and was glad to leave the overcrowding, pollution, lack of nature and outrageously high accommodation prices. I resent the fact that this has forced upon me again without my being able to have a say in the matter. But where else does one move now? The Sunshine Coast – once close to heaven on earth – has suffered from a similar phenomenon. One can only be grateful that the Noosa shire council has long had a draconian approach to development and has kept things reasonably bearable by not allowing high rises and traffic lights.

Well, that was an unexpectedly long digression! Back to housesitting. I am currently typing this in my 3rd story room with the morning sun coming in and a nice view of the monkey puzzle trees in the adjacent property owned by a religious community. Their acreage must be worth a fortune in this frenzied atmosphere of development. The cat is sleeping quietly beside me.

Let’s say a few things about the cat. When I moved in it was overbearingly friendly. Kirsty came over the first evening I was here and the cat managed to drink out of our water glasses as we were holding them. (Actually the cat looks pretty much identical to the photo Kirsty has on her blog) I must admit that’s a new one – having to protect your glass of water as you drink it from the cat. It sat on Kirsty as we were watching television and then bit her and hissed at her twice when she wanted to get up. It was then a nightly battle for supremacy of the bed with me getting bitten and hissed at for not wanting her – she is big and fat – to sleep right on top of me. I tried to make her sleep on her own corner of the bed, not on me. She would go around the house miaowing as well and would sit on you as soon as you sat down.

But her behaviour has changed in the last couple of days. After my obvious displeasure at these and other antics, the poor thing has now lost confidence and has started creeping timidly around the house, taking fright even at familiar objects, poking at them tentatively with a paw and then jumping away. For some reason my shoes, once I have taken them off, are particularly intimidating. The night before last she even took herself off on her own without my encouragement to another room to sleep after I had locked her out of my room for a couple of nights. But this is not a good situation either. Last night I let her sleep on my bed and she kept to her own side which was good and I have been giving her a lot of pats to try and cheer her up. She is quite an intelligent cat - learns quickly and reacts when you use her name.

There is a fishpond in the courtyard and I have watched her in the mornings eyeing off the fish with great interest. Birds flying past are also the object of great excitement.

Speaking of fish… I am immensely proud of myself for having cleaned and changed (some of) the water in the two fish tanks. One is a large bowl with 3 goldfish and the other is an aquarium with tropical fish, a ruined castle and a pirate’s treasure chest decorated with a skull. The whole process took a couple of hours. The fish are still alive today which is a good sign. The tanks were less than clean when I moved in to take over the housesit – which I was rather annoyed about. Hopefully I won’t have to clean them again before I move out in 10 days time.

In fact, the whole place is none too clean. The fridge was absolutely disgusting when I moved in and I had to clean it and put bowls of bicarb of soda as it was so bad it ruined all my own food. The rotting half of rockmelon and an old half empty can of tuna certainly didn’t help the case. Other things in the kitchen were rather grubby and the mattress I am sleeping on smells like disinfectant - or something. I had to wash my sheets a couple of times the first three days I was here to try and get the smell out. The mattress protector I bring to protect myself from the mattress is in full employ.

There are two bathrooms. The ensuite off the main bedroom has a shower recess with tiles that haven’t been angled properly for the water to drain and the water has to be squeegied to the plug hole. It is all somewhat grotty as well. The other bathroom has a shower over the bath but a screen which is not big enough to prevent a large amount of water from ending up on the bathroom floor. So the only option is have a bath every evening – which I certainly have no complaints about. A lovely radox bubble bath is certainly a good way to end the day. The bathtub (which I washed first with disinfectant) is a nice new fibreglass one.

Every spare inch of courtyard and garden near the front door is crammed with plants and there are window boxes and potplants on the balcony. The place would be great if it was given a thorough declutter and a clean. It is modern, sunny, well situated and has a nice view.

I have another new sit – only a short ten day one - coming up at the end of September.

Still housesitting!

2008-08-19T19:39:00.004+09:30

It's certainly been a long time since my last post. This year has been a shocker on the work overload front and my blog and numerous other activities have languished. This year has been all repeat housesitting assignments - except for the one that I am starting this Friday. To tell the truth I enjoy the novelty of untested housesits. Nonetheless under the circumstances having a year almost exclusively of repeats is good.

In January I did two one week housesits - one innercity one with two dogs and the most delightful cat and the second one on acreage just outside of Brisbane with a dog. The latter is probably my favourite house. I had a long break until the end of May and then redid the minimalist house I mentioned in this blog back in 2005. This time it had a cat in residence - a really lovely cat whom I missed when I left. This housesit was followed by the 100 year old stately home I did last year. This sit was marred by the fact that one of the owner's computers went belly up when I used it. Embarrassment all round.

Then in a repetition of the housesitting sequence of last year I followed this with the house with the two abyssinian cats, fish, lizards and turtles. This year no fish died and the cats got on like a house on fire with not a fight in sight and although it was difficult cooking dinner with two cats trying to nab my food on the granite benchtops and even on the stove - they were far better than they were last year and sometimes even verging on cute.

The next housesit is definitely a novelty in that I will be able to walk to work. It is by no means a grand mansion but a comfortable 3 storey townhouse with nice views, foxtel and a plasma TV. Pity it is only for two weeks! It would seem speaking to housesitting agency owners, that there has been a bit of a downturn in home owners going away and those who are going away are only leaving for brief periods. Hopefully this panic stricken behaviour in the wake of media reports about dire financial climates will be short lived and home owners will once again realise how beneficial absence from the home is for themselves and others.

Murderous dog owners

2007-11-01T14:26:00.000+09:30

The famous British crime novelist P.D. James notes:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/bwriting/stories/s939323.htm

Ramona Koval (Interviewer): I think if I was going to commit a murder, I would make — well I do have a cat, I've got two — but you've said that 'It occurs to me that I can't remember ever reading about a murderer who gave room to or was fond of a cat.'

PD James: No, they all seem to have dogs. [laughter] I don't know why, but it's absolutely true. They do seem to have dogs. But I haven't read of a murderer who's got a cat.

Ramona Koval: So a cat is a good cover. [laughter]

PD James: I don't think a discriminating feline would condescend to live in the house of a murderer.

PD James: I haven't got a dog. I like dogs. But nevertheless, a tremendous number of real-life murderers have had dogs.

house sitting equipment

2007-11-01T13:20:00.000+09:30

The guy who mows the lawns and the housekeeper were both here today. We all had a gossip. Servants' hall gossip indeed. I feel like something out of the Edwardian era!

I think I will need to add another item to my house sitting kit, namely a wing bottle opener. When I have people over for lunch I usually need to open a bottle of wine (or two). I have found that the houses I am looking after often have very non functional bottle openers. This house has a 'fish' bottle opener which could only be used with difficulty. One of my visitors, after opening the second bottle, left the cork screwed so far onto the corkscrew section that I had to go and buy a pair of plyers to separate cork from corkscrew.

Other stuff I have in my housesitting kit - much of it missing from the current house:

Kitchen equipment
Dish rack. Even if you have a dishwasher you still need a dishrack. I never put saucepans in the dishwasher as they don't really wash. I suppose people must just put their dishes and pots on the drainer next to the sink - but that doesn't work very well.

Blender for early morning smoothies, vegetable peeler, sharp knife, cutting board - so I can keep the owner's board and knives in pristine condition.

Dishwashing detergent - so I don't suffer chemical overload using one with perfume I am not used to. The same goes for laundry soap powder.

Audio-visual
Cordless phone. I need to be able to walk around while I am on the phone. I have had to bring a cordless phone to this sit.

Music. If the homeowner has foxtel I will just listen to the foxtel lounge and cafe radio stations. If not I will bring my minidisk player and use a fm transmitter to play music on their stereo. This house has no stereo so I have brought some speakers as well which can be plugged into the md player. I now have an ipod and I have been playing that too.

VCR/DVD player. I have had to bring a VCR to this house and attached it to the tiny 34cm TV which sits on the kitchen bench. I have set up a comfy armchair on the sitting room side of the bench. I decided not to bring my DVD player so I could tape shows from the TV.

Laptop. Although I will often use the owner's computer just for checking email if they are linked up to broadband. I have my own dial up account which is of course transportable from house to house.

Watering can for the garden.

Bed and bath
Mattress protector. I've had to bring one of those to the current house as well. I don't like putting my sheets on the bare mattress.

Sheets and towels. Then I have my own 100% cotton items and don't have to worry about a huge wash at the end of the sit.

Bedside lamp. Fortunately this house has them. There have been some houses which haven't.

Pet equipment
Dog food bowls. One house had such miniscule plastic bowls which kept sliding everywhere and slopping the food over the sides that I invested in two proper dog bowls to make my life easier.

Kitty litter. One house had a cat who would often stay in at night - but no outside access and no kitty litter. It didn't actually use the kitty litter I set up however. In the house with the infamous Bargearse, I set up a kitty litter at night on the front verandah so the cat didn't have to go out and be beaten up by the toms next door.

Disinfectant, rubber gloves, dog poo bags. These speak for themselves really!

Retractable dog leads. With unruly dogs not trained to walk properly on the leash these have come in handy.

Pet brush for brushing animals.

I tend move stuff in and out when the home owner is not around. I have noticed that owners don't like it when they see you arrive with a whole heap of bags!

Sunshine Coast hinterland

2007-10-29T16:20:00.000+09:30

As I mentioned I am currently housesitting in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. It was a bit of an effort getting here but now that I'm here I'm really pleased that I came. Even with having to do trips to and from Brisbane it's well worth it.

It is a lovely stormy misty day up here. After a thunderstorm earlier - all the nearby fields and hills (and cows and horses) are invisible through the mist.

I now have my car back - it cost a mere......$7,000!! I have to run in the engine for 800k and then take it back to them for them to check and tighten up bolts etc. It also has a 12 month, 20,000k warranty and even logbook service! A much better deal than buying another second hand car all round. It looks all shiny and new under the bonnet.

I have found a really nice place where I can do pilates and fitball every morning at 8am. A lady runs it in her house which is next to a lake. She puts on a DVD on her big plasma TV in a big room with mats and there are around 3-5 of us each morning. Then she makes us all a delicious protein and fruit shake. So that's exercise and breakfast taken care of for the day and a bit of socialising. All for $7 - not bad eh?

So far this has to be the easiest housesit I have ever done - with the housekeeper here everyday to take care of the garden and the house and no pets! And a guy who mows the lawn once a week. The housekeeper didn't come today - which is good as I felt like a bit of a break!! And I was worried I was going to be lonely here in the country! It is a really comfy house with beautiful views situated as it is on top of a ridge. It is very conducive to getting work done -so I have been doing quite a lot of that. My main website is, I discover, bigger than Ben Hur and even after months of work I am still not finished the update.

The owners of this house are true eccentrics and although it is a modern house they have done it up as a small, highly organised and very English stately home -with antique paintings and lithographs covering every inch of wall and antique furniture and objets d'art covering every surface. The garden is magnificent with fabulous and prolific Pierre de Ronsard roses and an orchid house. It also sports the most lush and gigantic fuscias I have ever seen.

There is a small fountain and pond in the front courtyard and a somewhat unsuccessful pond and far less attractive fountain around the back. Because of a particularly loud frog in this pond which only emerges at night I have had to move to another bedroom which is not quite as nice as the one the owners allocated me to - but it is still pretty good - with an antique chaise longue next to the floor length window which looks out on the front garden.

The saga of the car

2007-10-22T18:20:00.000+09:30

After the car stereo crisis - the crisis worsened and moved on to the car itself. It was a problem that needed a quick solution as I had to travel to the Sunshine Coast hinterland to housesit (where I am now). I looked at new cars and then realised the repayments would send me down the spiralling debt gurgler once again just as I was getting things under control, a reliable second hand car would do the same. My only option was to do up my current car. I like my car: it is a 1991 Toyota Corolla Seca CSi and a very nice smooth luxurious vehicle - with very suitable boot size for my house sitting activities.

My faithful car is now out at Logan deep in hoon heartland in the hands of experts being fixed. The workshop is in an amazing street chockers with specialist car repair places and other places of similar ilk. The workshop itself has a front office which was decorated with engine blocks, award certificates of all kinds, photos of interesting engine rebuilds, cars at rallies etc. I would say I have most definitely taken my car to the right place.

The car needs no less than an engine rebuild, a new steering rack and a new clutch, 2 new tyres, new CV joints and possibly new suspension. Oh well - what the hell - it is going to be one bloody good car after all this. The body is really good and so is the interior trim. They will ring me on Monday to give me the full story after they have driven the car around a bit and looked at it.

I took the train back into town after one of the guys gave me a lift to the station. I then got a ferry to Brett's Wharf (a 45 minute ferry ride on the river) where I picked up a car from Rent-a-bomb. The car is actually virtually identical to my own, right down to the colour. Pretty amazing coincidence eh wot? It certainly makes it easy to drive as it is exactly like driving my own car - only this one goes a lot better than mine has been going - it would certainly need to! It doesn't have as good a stereo naturally - but it has an auxiliary jack so I have been able to plug my ipod into it. It certainly beats renting a new car at a reasonable $235 for the week.

It is reassuring, however, to note that if the model of car I have is indestructible enough to form one of the staple fleet members (and I saw a few of them there) of rent-a-bomb it must be worth doing up. The model is actually still being built in Africa.

By the time I got rid of my last car in 2000 - a 1977 Mazda 323 - it really was a wreck - dashboard and other plastics cracked, replacement window winder barely working, driver's seat in imminent danger of falling off its rails, dodgy rear view mirror, speedo only working intermittently, lights sometimes not working, backboard in the hatch area falling to bits, padding under the carpet all gone, rust and water in the doors and in the firewall, dents all over the car, paint faded down to the metal. I won't even mention the mechanical condition. When a car gets to that point one knows that it is definitely time to let it go. My corolla is virtually a new car in comparison to that.

I am actually really excited now at the prospect of getting my car completely done up. I will also go ahead and fix up a back panel later this year, and the tint which is starting to peel off the back window. I have also found this place called Harry Hubcap where I can get a new hubcap to replace one that is missing. One friend joked that I could end up with a classic corolla - that would be a laugh. Before you know it I'll be sporting a chrome tailpipe and hanging out at street cars meetings.

Music continued

2007-09-10T06:58:00.000+09:30

My well-informed and erudite audiophile friend sent me the comment below and as it explains things so well I asked him if I could post it here. Incidentally I finally found a competent car stereo shop and they installed some very fine Italian audiophile "Hertz" speakers with fibre tweeters rather than metal tweeters. I have absolutely wonderful sound in the car now - very mellow and very enjoyable to listen to loud!

But here is my friend's comment.

I was reading your latest blog entry last night and got the feeling that you may have misunderstood some of what I was saying about the "Loudness War" in CD production. It is easy to do, as some of the terms used in audio production don't have quite the same meaning as when used in the wider world. An explanation of the difference should set things right. (I should add that the following explanations are very very general and non-technical.) This will be fairly dry, so you should feel free to bin it if you are not that interested.
Decibel (not referred to in your blog, but crucial to an understanding of the problem)
Sound, in the physical environment, is measured in decibels relative to an accepted threshold of human hearing (0db). That approach is the only one that makes sense, since we know that in the physical world we can hear nothing below the hearing threshold, and there is (theoretically) no limit to the loudness of sound. In the recording world decibel is used in a subtly different way - not to measure absolute volume but, rather, to measure relative volume within the context of the recording system.
All recording systems have both a lower and an upper limit (referred to as the dynamic range). The lower limit is referred to as the noise floor - any sound that is softer than the noise floor cannot be recorded by the technology being used. The upper limit is the point at which components in the recording technology are placed under such strain that a pure sound will start to distort. Because both the upper and lower limits are determined by the technology, the 0db-infinite paradigm becomes unworkable. Recording engineers, therefore, work in the minus decibel range. The point at which distortion starts (the upper limit) is set to 0db and the noise floor is set relative to that point. The noise floor of analog tape is generally around -60 to -80db, the noise floor of 16bit digital (CD) is -96db, and the noise floor of 24bit digital is -144db. Thus, the available dynamic range for digital (96db or 144 db) is greater than for analog (max 80db). Human hearing has a dynamic range of around 120db - the difference between the hearing and pain thresholds.
Distortion
In recording terms, distortion refers to imperfections introduced into a sound when the recording technology is driven beyond it's capacity. It does not refer to the content being recorded - which may include deliberately distorted sound.
Components in analogue systems will begin introducing distortion at 0db but will continue to function, becoming more distorted as the volume is pushed into the +db range. Analogue distortion retains a harmonic relationship to the original clean signal because it is a distortion of that signal. Digital systems, on the other hand, have an absolute ceiling of 0db and all sounds that hit that ceiling are clipped (i.e. the parts at 0db or over are cut off and replaced by pure digital static-like distortion with no harmonic relationship to the original signal). Bad, bad, bad...
Peak and RMS (not RMF) levels
There are several ways to measure the level of a recorded audio signal. Peak level measures the loudest peak relative to 0db. RMS (Root Mean Square) measures the average loudness relative to 0db, and is the best measure of the perceived loudness of a recording. The dynamic range of the recording can also be derived from the relationship between the Peak and RMS levels. A recording with a Peak of -5db and an RMS of -20db will have a greater perceived dynamic range than a recording with a Peak of -5db and and an RMS of -15db. Thus, the higher the RMS, the louder and less dynamic the recording will seem. Which brings us to... compression.
Compression
Your reference to "compression ratios in contemporary CD production" is incorrect. Compression in the recording realm is not the same as compression in the digital distribution realm. The former refers to the process of reducing the dynamic range (Peak to RMS) of a recording (analogue or digital), while the latter refers to the use of algorithms to reduce the size of a digital file.
Compression in audio recording has been around for decades, and involves the use of either analogue circuitry or software to detect and automatically reduce the volume of sudden peaks. A recording with a +1db Peak and -20db RMS could be put through a compressor to become -1db Peak and -20db RMS, avoiding distortion while retaining most of the dynamic range. Alternatively, the compressor could be (mis)used to change a perfectly good -1db Peak and -20db RMS recording to -10db Peak and -20db RMS. Same perceived loudness (RMS) but less dynamic range. The overall volume could then be boosted by 9db (making -1db and -11db) to create a perceived louder recording.
The "Loudness Wars"
Over the last 10-15 years record companies have been progressively misusing compressors to raise the perceived loudness of recordings so that they can cut through the noise in the chain stores. But that is not where it ends. The problem with over-compression is that, sooner or later, average punters will start to notice that all of their music sounds completely lifeless - with most of the dynamic range having been sucked out. So, how do you raise the perceived loudness even further while at least paying lip-service to dynamic range? If you don't want to push the compression any further, all you can do is push up the volume and allow some peaks to hit the ceiling and turn into distortion. And that is exactly what record companies have been doing. A medium that has the capacity to deliver pure, undistorted, music with a very wide dynamic range is being used to deliver deliberately distorted music that has a very narrow dynamic range. Fortunately, smaller companies that specialise in 'art' music have resisted the trend.
What you are experiencing with some modern CDs is ear-fatigue induced by the RMS level (it has been long established that high perceived loudness and low dynamic range induce fatigue) exacerbated by the deliberate (and very unpleasant) digital distortion. The worst of it may have been masked to some extent by your previous system. Hopefully the new speakers will also help to mask the problem.

Technology in the new millenium

2007-09-03T07:40:00.000+09:30

The saga of the installation of a new stereo in my car continues. The last thing I could be described as is a Luddite. I have always embraced new technologies with the enthusiasm of the gadget lover, but in the new millennium I have run into multiple problems. I have already outlined the difficulties I have had visually at a physical level with Apple’s new operating system OSX. I also have problems with some new plasma and LCD televisions (and computer monitors), problems I have never had with old CRT displays and televisions.

These difficulties are not merely aesthetic or cognitive as many attempt to argue - they are problems which emerge at the very physicality of the body. The body becomes uncomfortable and ill – headaches, blurry vision – it can’t cope with the particular visual parameters and kind of stimulus it is being presented with.

I now find myself in a similar position in the auditory arena with my new stereo system. The sound literally hurts my ears even at low volumes. I get out of the car with muffled hearing and other loud sounds become painful. This has not been helped by an outrageously incompetent installation process.

I got the new stereo head unit put in and found that the existing speakers which I had decided not to change over from my old system sounded like a bad transistor radio. The advice – which I had to come up with myself in consultation with a very knowledgeable audiophile friend – was to get new speakers installed. The shop when I informed them of this advised me that my preferences were clearly for American sound. In my last blog entry I described my cultural resistance to this. But the new Boston audiophile speakers I then got installed produced only a marginally better sound.

In desperation a hunt through the yellow pages led to me ring another car audio specialist. He found that my two rear speakers had been installed out of phase – so if each speaker individually produced a reasonable bass response, when they were running together the sound waves cancelled each other out and there was literally no bass. The front speakers were sitting unsteadily on their mounts and sound was leaking out from the back of these speakers through another grill which should have been blocked up.

I had noticed the muffled hearing problem immediately with these Boston speakers, but even with them wired up correctly the problem persists. Consultation with my knowledgeable friend again resulted in an interesting discussion about compression ratios in contemporary CD production and the boosting of RMF factors to produce a loud but distorted sound overall. The speakers are probably too good and are revealing far more detail than my auditory processing can handle at any comfortable level.

So what is the solution to all this? Well, first step will be to get my old speakers re-installed – properly this time by the same guy who corrected the installation of the new speakers. It looks very likely that it was the installation of the head unit that caused the problem with the original speakers – which were very good ones when I invested in them 7 years ago. If this doesn’t work I will have to get my old head unit repaired (if that is indeed possible) and reinstalled and then see if I can run an ipod adaptor from the auxiliary output at the rear of the unit.

I can then embark on a slow process of research to find a new system that doesn’t hurt my ears and that I actually enjoy listening to. This time I will be investigating European systems – my prejudice against the products of American culture are once again confirmed.

Needless to say, all of this has already been a large investment of time and dollars both of which are a scarce commodity for me - $500 for the new speakers alone and a further $120 to get them re-installed correctly by somebody else. There is of course also the not inconsiderable stress that this whole process has generated. If my old speakers are in fact okay, I will have to sell the new ones on the second hand market. If they are not okay and I have to re-install my old head – I will also then in addition have the new head unit to sell on the second hand market.

There are a couple of things – apart from the sound that bother me about the new head unit as well. The old one – a top of the range JVC minidisk/CD unit (KD–MX3000) had a flashy volume level display that looked like a road you were driving along and also a little icon of a rotating md or cd – flashy but I rather enjoyed its over the top kitchiness. The display also dimmed automatically when the headlights were turned on. The display was in addition not too bright and in a restful green colour. I loved this stereo to bits. The new one – a JVC ipod model (KD-PDR35) - has a bright blue display which even on the dim setting, which I had to scour the manual to find, is far too bright for night driving. The whole aesthetic design is a lot cheaper than the previous model.

I just can’t face the prospect of going back to the original store and telling them effectively that they are a bunch of incompetents. What’s worse is that I chose this store as it is a family run specialist car audio business which has been around for years and they were the same business that ran the (different) store where I bought my last stereo. I had a few installation problems with that as well – but managed to resolve them after taking it back a couple of times.

I have always looked forward in the past to upgrades of technology, which given my budget and policy of only replacing things which had irretrievably broken down, have always been far and few between, but now I am starting to dread upgrading. Previously buying a new Mac, a new stereo, a new car was an exciting moment indeed.

For instance, I bought one of the original Sony minidisk units back in 1998 and what a beautiful machine that was. The top of the range replacement I bought when this one finally died last year was not a patch on it. Heaps more features of course but a miniscule readout panel with no backlighting, a menu structure which needed lengthy and frequent consultation of the manual – a jogger dial which only worked sporadically – some functions only available on the remote. I understand Sony has fixed some of these problems on a more recent unit, but I’m not willing to spend any more money.

God knows what nightmares I am going to face when I have to buy a new second hand car. My 1991 Toyota Corolla hatch was a fairly luxurious vehicle in its day and still is – when I compare it to the current models which are smaller and are therefore less accommodating for my house sitting gear and which are all hard surfaces and cheap plastic.

I recently hired a Hyundai Getz when my car was out of action for a few days and that was a truly uncomfortable and irritating experience – hard seats, too high on the road, poor visibility and steering that was worse than my Toyota – suspension and steering never being the strong point of that particular model.

So what is one to conclude from all of this? There is something drastically wrong with new millennium culture and that is reflected in the very way technology interfaces with the body. It is a technology designed for robots not for humans. It is a technology which is not designed with care and attention to other human beings - the goal instead is pushing the boundaries of what can be done technically and making money while ignoring real functionality (as opposed to gimmicks) and the actual enjoyment of the user. It all becomes about status, ownership, quantity and display and the demonstration of virtuosity at the expense of warmth and enjoyment and taking one’s time.

The old ethos was that you saved up your money or you took out a loan and then you owned an object which you loved and kept for years. This was certainly the ethos I have always operated with. Now the focus is on buy it today, find it is stressful cheap crap then throw it out tomorrow to buy more of the same – only with more bells and whistles.

I saw a documentary a few months ago on Italian design and craftsmanship in Milan and its very conscious and theorised ethos of counteracting mass culture with quality, local craftsmanship and care, producing objects treasured by the consumer because they had been lovingly constructed by people who cared about their product. The only problem is that these beautiful clothes, furniture, cars and other objects are completely out of the financial range of the common run of mortals. There used to be a kind of intermediary zone, which if it took you a while to save the money, was still doable.

Now all that seems to be available is cheap (although still expensive) rubbish and millionaire luxury.

I am beginning to sound like an old fogey – but as I said I have always loved cutting edge technology and gadgetry and the now, but my body literally rejects the products of new millennium culture and technology and even food. Like many others I have developed a variety of food allergies which are extremely irritating to have to navigate around.

One might even start to speculate whether as a consumer in the contemporary world, it is has become too much to ask to have a good but not outrageous music system, a TV and computer that doesn’t give you a headache, a comfy but unostentatious car that gets you from a to b, a comfy but not over the top place to live in, and food which doesn’t make you sick. We are collectively producing a culture that works well for robots and the smiling actors in commercials and Hollywood blockbusters but not for actual human beings. Then there is the issue of the galloping gap between the rich and the poor.

I have noticed increasingly over the last three to four years that for the first time in my life I don’t feel comfortable with contemporary culture – its politics, its ethical stances, its insane obsession with hyper consumerism. My own standard of living has dropped – my rent has gone up by $50 a week just in the last year - but I have counteracted this problem by taking on house sitting –which has been a wonderful choice.

But can I continue to find the loopholes which allow me to lead an enjoyable life at a day-to-day level? I and a few friends had a serious discussion yesterday about overly demanding, stressful and alienating workplaces which make it impossible to actually have any sort of quality of human existence and interaction with others. The whole workplace situation at present is just yet another aspect of the whole current problem of a culture that is basically not human friendly and privileges the very rich, the very energetic and healthy, and the well-connected.

All the hope and real enjoyment seems to have drained out of mainstream global human cultural endeavour – even if various subcultures are working desperately hard to counteract this.

Portable music

2007-08-26T11:49:00.000+09:30

It is an absolutely beautiful day today - somewhat humid after all the rain. The frogs are out in force. To tell the truth I would like to have more rain and more interesting stormy weather. The week of rain was nowhere near enough to break the drought. The constant sunshine becomes relentless after a while. I never dreamed I would ever make such a statement - sunshine lover that I am!

I have just bought a new stereo system for my car as the old one was no longer working properly and as I said in my previous posts I also wanted to jump on the whole ipod bandwagon and take it on hook line and sinker. You can plug an ipod directly into this stereo. I have been umming and ahhing for years over which portable music solution I should adopt given the huge array of choices. I finally decided, given the ubiquity of ipod, and connectivity available to go for itunes and ipod.

I got the system into the car and then found that the sound was terrible -like a bad transistor radio. The speakers I had carefully chosen for my previous system 7 years ago were just not up to the job. The very expert salesman, Tom in the car stereo specialist shop where I have bought both my latest and my last stereo, after a long chat and a demonstration of some Pioneer speakers recommended some Boston 4 inch and coaxial speakers, gave me some specs and instructed me to do some research on the net. Reviews on the net are very positive. As I will be up for $500 worth of speakers the speakers had better be good.

I worked out in conjunction with Tom that I prefer the American sound system - bass and mid tones, the European style is mid tones to high tones and the Japanese is all in the high tones. I have known for some time that I detest the Sony bang a cymbal in your ear and scratch your fingernails on the board sound and I find the European sound (eg Bang and Olufsen) a bit light on the bass end . Why I didn't conclude from there that the American sound preferences were for me is probably due to my resistance to American cultural imperialism in general - but there it is.

The same day I put a new stereo in my car, in a mad buying spree I also bought one of the new core duo intel minimacs. What a nice little machine. Very portable, reasonably priced for a computer and you can hook it up to any old monitor, keyboard and mouse (which is precisely what I have done) and it just goes. I am using it to house my new itunes library. Importing CDs onto my ancient laptop was putting a lot of strain on the machine and it only has a 20 gig hard drive. There was also the added issue of the USB 1 port which although it appears to work with the ipod I tried at an Apple store, could be somewhat dicey.

New Apple machines no longer include an internal modem for dialup, so I had to buy an external USB modem, but they are only very small so it is not a big inconvenience. the modem is also a lot faster than the modems on my other ancient machines. The other really nifty thing is that I can dial up on the minimac and then by using airport I can connect to the net on my laptop. I am seriously impressed by this feature!

I still haven't found an ipod as yet. They are scarce as hen's teeth at present. Rumours are rife that Apple are bringing out a new model given this glitch in supply. They never announce these things - no doubt as a strategy to keep people buying the old stuff and not holding out for the new.

So what does this computer and sound buying frenzy have to do with house sitting you may ask? Well, I need portable music solutions for housesitting and have been deliberating on what to do for literally years. Housesitting also helps me save a serious amount of money and I have actually been able to afford to make these purchases. When I bought the minidisk/CD car stereo back in 2000 I had to take out a loan which took me a year to pay off. This time I can buy the equipment outright. This will have to be it for a while however - funds are not unlimited by any means!

I have just noticed that not only are the frogs out in force but so are the insects! I hope the frogs get hold of the insects. The dog just rushed out the door frantically barking - I don't know why- I couldn't see anything. She is a very good watch dog. Last night the neighbours let off some rather spectacular fireworks which of course drove her wild. She has now come back inside and is lying on her inside mat under a very large and beautifully minimalist aboriginal dot painting.

I have to say that at the moment I am living my idea of the perfect holiday! I will admit I have been racing around frantically getting things done as there is so much I want to get done - things I have been putting off for years due to the pressure of urgent work.

Continuing squally weather

2007-08-23T06:43:00.000+09:30

This blustery squally weather is blissful. Long may it continue. In how many areas of the world would you hear that comment? What a relief to have water - it reduces the ambient stress levels considerably. The countryside is looking decidedly more relaxed. The gutters on the house are blocked with leaves and a lot of the water is going to waste and not into the inground rainwater tank. I cleared out a few of the leaves from the top of the downpipes around the house this morning.

I rang AAPT yesterday to subscribe to a dialup account - and it works! They certainly activated it quickly. I rang in the morning and it was on in the afternoon. I am still having fun with computers and spent a lot of time yesterday playing with itunes. I will buy an ipod today and make an appointment to get a new car stereo in (my current one is kaput). I can also plug an ipod directly into the new one. I seem to be having fewer problems with eyestrain and OSX. Perhaps it is something to do with the way my titanium laptop displays it and also with the fact that I am a bit less exhausted after a month of holidays, Even if I am doing work related things - I can do these at my own pace.

Wuthering heights

2007-08-23T06:39:00.000+09:30

I have returned to the beautiful house in the country that I looked after last year. I will be here for 6 heavenly weeks. It is on top of a hill overlooking other rolling grassy and tree covered hills and cows but it is still only 30 minutes drive into the city. It really is like heaven - completely dark and quiet at night, fresh country air and the house has that creaky wooden feel and smell that old Australian country houses often have.

It is 6.30 in the morning as I type and the only sounds I can hear are the dawn chorus - crows, parrots, lorikeets, an occasional distant dog barking. There is a very slight breeze coming through the window. The house has a tin roof, so the two minutes of rain last night were very noticeable. In the last house, the owners had asked me to record the rainfall measured by their rain gauge. It only rained 40 millimetres over one night in the whole month I was there. It is noticeably drier and less vegetated than when I was out here last year. I wish it would rain - I miss the tropical environment that Brisbane once was.

Some new paintings have appeared since my last stay: one in particular I very much like. I must say it has been a pleasure looking after all these homes with beautiful artwork. The last house featured some particularly fine aboriginal paintings. There is also quite a bit of aboriginal artwork in the current house. The current owner has more consistent and better taste in art than the previous owner. In the last house, if the aboriginal artwork was magnificent, the other paintings left a lot to be desired.

Slight drawbacks in the current house are the absence of foxtel and broadband. Dialup doesn't seem to work on my laptop either - I'll keep trying. My desktop dialup worked out here last year but I was with a different ISP at that stage as well.

The cat is no longer here. It disappeared a few months ago when another house sitter was in residence. I'm glad it wasn't me! The theory is that he got bitten by a snake. So it is just the dog and the lizards now. The dog is such a pleasure after those cats in the last house! She is intelligent (border collie cross), friendly, yet undemanding.

The lizards, which are only small - not the large variety I had in the last housesit - reside in two glass tanks. Last time I was here there was only one tank containing completely different lizards. I wonder what happened to the other ones? The lights need to be on in both tanks during the day for warmth, as the lizards originate from the Northern Territory. One of the lizards has died already. In fact I think it died yesterday not long after the owner left in his maserati. It was attacked and killed by another lizard in the tank and was missing its tail. This poses the yucky problem of me fishing it out of the tank. In the last housesit, after the first fish died, I needed moral support to scoop it out of the pond with a net. This basically involved having a friend there watching me perform this task. The second fish was much easier. There is no immediate moral support available in relation to the lizard, however, and it won't be easy!

Speaking of the cats, one of the owners rang the day after I left as I had left a couple of things behind - something I very rarely do - and she tells me that the cats are now little miss kitty angels with halos positively glowing around their pointy ears - thereby casting a faint shadow of disrepute over the long suffering house sitter. Obviously the house sitter whipped them into shape so they are now in fine fettle for the owners. But how long will it last? .... It’s only a matter of time before the rubber gloves and disinfectant are out again I say...

2 days later

As I can’t get dial up to work in this house I will have to upload these entries when I next have access to the net. Speaking of computers – after seeing and playing with the current owner’s nifty new ipod which is set up in a dock connecting to his stereo, I have finally decided to do the ipod thing. I have been feeling frustrated for a couple of years now by my aging technology and the inadequacy of my portable music solutions given my itinerant lifestyle.

There has also been the added problem of the eyestrain caused by OSX on the Macintosh.
I have been a Mac user since 1984 and this problem has really put a spanner in the works of my usual early adopter habits. Moving over to Windoze poses a number of problems at a number of levels – aesthetically (I like a computer and gui that looks nice!), security wise (a real hassle having to run so much anti-virus and spyware software), and also in terms of the migration of things like my Eudora files and the purchase of windows versions of things like word, Photoshop and my web design software. The new OS Vista which I initially thought could be the go also seems to have a number of problems with excessive security in terms of copying various things such as music and video.

So I have been stuck in a dilemma, using aged computers and the old Mac OS 9 and then using windows machines at work and in housesits to web surf as none of the old browsers that work for OS9 are adequate for current websites.

Today I am going into a Mac shop to try the new Mac mini and see how it works as an external hard drive on my laptop. Incidentally, I bought this laptop (a titanium Mac) for $450 on ebay at the end of last year – it was worth $4,500 when it was new 6 years ago. It is still a very fine machine.

At least the Mac mini might solve some of the problems like itunes and other non-text related things and it is relatively cheap as far as computers go. I could then use it with an ipod. My car stereo is also not working properly and internet research reveals that there are two new JVC car stereos which are specifically set up for the ipod. My current stereo was a top of the range JVC unit in 2000 which plays both CDs and minidisks. There is currently a minidisk stuck in it which won’t eject.

Well, I didn’t actually set out to engage in a long rant about my computing and portable music problems – but it certainly all relates to my house sitting ventures. It was when I hit the road in June 2005 that all my computing arrangements fell apart and a few months of bad eyestrain set in. I have been uncertain how to resolve the portable music problems as there is so much choice out there in the market. I have been going with the minidisk option – but it has become a very specialised technology and my new minidisk player is really not as usable as my old player – one of the first models – which I acquired true to my previous status as an early adopter. I was also interested in iriver players for mp3s.

The Apple ipod has become a marketing megalith which I don’t really like, but at least the rest of the market is set up for it in terms of interface with other technology (eg car stereos), the integration with itunes on the computer and I can also share libraries with my friends. And one has to admit that the ipod looks good. I love stylish well-designed technology that is just plug and play. The aesthetic style and plug and play ease of use has always been what has attracted me to the Mac and OSX has cast a serious shadow over the pleasure I used to feel in relation to Mac computers.

Back to house sitting however! I think I will now place the current house at number one favourite spot amongst those I have house sat. It is not as luxurious as the last house in terms of appliances etc but it is far more relaxed and casual and very nicely decorated. There is a really beautiful Chinese silk rug in one of the rooms. I am not terribly interested in rugs as a rule but this one is lovely. As I have mentioned I particularly like the paintings and there are lots of them.

The resident pet – a lovely dog - is absolutely no trouble at all and good to have around. She is a great guard dog and barks whenever anybody comes up to the house. As the house is on 5 acres with a long drive and a country gate, there are no casual passers by. You can walk the dog off the leash, no problems, and she comes when you call. It is certainly much easier without the cat, which used to wake me every morning at 5 am. Incidentally, with the aid of rubber gloves and a plastic bag, I fished the dead lizard out of the tank – yuck!

The country setting is really beautiful and relaxing. I am right now looking out of my bedroom window at a Banksia bush playing host to a couple of brightly coloured lorikeets feeding on the flowers and then beyond that tree covered hills with shadows of clouds passing over them. The weather yesterday and the day before was excellent – it rained for a whole night and day and last night was wildly windy. Hearing the rain on the tin roof and the wind blustering around the house was fantastic. I feel as though my holidays have truly started now. Anyway, I had better stop rambling on as I am getting rather hungry – time for breakfast!

Another week to go

2007-08-10T08:16:00.000+09:30

I won't be sorry to say goodbye to these cats. I let them eat together this morning and then a big chase ensued - but fortunately no caterwauling or cat bodily functions. I separated them and timid cat was trembling. No more attempts by me to get them together before I leave. I will very happily abandon the problem to the owners.

Cleaning is going to be a huge j0b. I might try ringing another cleaning agency.

On a non housesitting subject - I have been reading the latest Harry Potter: HP and the Deathly Hallows. A good end to the series and I was spot on in my speculations concerning my favourite character Snape. Since a good few people won't have read the book I won't say anything more. I don't think JK Rowling is going to be let off the hook however. I can see some serious arm twisting happening to produce more books in the detailed universe she has created.

I am currently on extended long service leave and holidays so I am taking the opportunity to do things like re-design and update my websites - a really huge job. I have finally dragged my web design skills out of the late 90s where they had fossilised and am now discovering the joys of CSS - very useful indeed - although it is not the be all and end all.

Fish and cleaners

2007-08-08T11:35:00.001+09:30

Unfortunately I found another fish floating belly up yesterday morning - this time it was one of the grey catfish. The last one was a pike. I took timid kitty to the vet yesterday. She had been demonstrating too many instances of food regurgitation and her eye was looking rheumy. She never miaows except when screeching at the other cat, but she miaowed pathetically the whole way to and from the vet's. It seems that she is a colisi virus carrier - hence the eye - and the vet agreed with my assessment that the cat was a nervous wreck but wanted to do some blood tests when the owner got back just in case. The vet, who was a lovely person, was most interested by my career as a housesitter and I left a small pile of cards strictly for home owners with beautiful houses and well-behaved cats!

I am dreading the cleanup on this huge house. I still haven't been able to find a decent cleaner after my fabulous cleaner decided that he would prefer to do a park ranger qualification. He came from the one cleaning company I trust and they have nobody working in the area where I am living at present. So I will have to do it myself. Cleaning is hard work and a good cleaner is worth their weight in gold!

Only a temporary truce

2007-08-06T08:26:00.000+09:30

Unfortunately the cats have started fighting again so it is back to the separation regime. I think it was because of a slight change of routine on my part and not instantly giving the cats some food when they demanded it (although they had already been fed)- but who knows? Timid cat peed in my bedroom after being chased by bully cat and it stinks so much I had to move into the other bedroom which the owners had left me a note not to use as the cat had peed in that one (sigh) after a fight just before I started the house sit.

I have tried 4 different types of disinfectent in the room to no avail. Internet searches reveal a product called urine off which apparently does wonders. I will buy some today from the specialised cat vet practice which these cats attend. I bought some feliway from them when I first moved in. This is a kind of synthetic cat pheremone which is meant to help to calm them down in situations they find stressful and to discourage them from spraying.

I'll have to stop typing as one of the cats won't leave me alone! I have about 10 more days to go here. At least I can put them in the cat runs during the day and put them in separate rooms at night.

One fish down

2007-08-04T07:28:00.000+09:30

I had a look at the pond yesterday morning and found that one of the pikes had gone belly up in the night. It can't have been the cold as it was a lot milder than usual the preceeding night. I haven't had the courage to scoop it out of the pond yet. I am secretly hoping that the kookaburras might take care of it - I haven't checked yet today.

The cats are really starting to calm down and they are not showing such extreme behavioural disorder - nervous wreck cat is now almost relaxed and bully cat has pulled her horns in. I let them have the run of the huge house and cat runs in the mornings and evenings and they have toys to play with like the plastic bags and the pom poms. They also like batting around green runner beans that I drop on the floor. When I am not supervising them however, I keep them separate in the cat runs during the day and locked up in separate rooms at night.

Nervous wreck cat who has thrown up the last two Saturday mornings and made me late for yoga is looking fine today. The problem she seems to have had with her eye (it looked like a stye) has cleared up too. (I was not looking forward to the prospect of taking her to the vet.) Nonetheless, when I returned home yesterday after a lunch with colleagues she appeared absolutely petrified of the skirt I was wearing - which features sequins, beads and lace around the bottom. Far too much sparkle and movement. It was hilarious - I had to go and change.

I actually managed to catch one of the turtles happily sunning itself on a rock yesterday - before it suddenly realised somebody was looking at it whereupon in a tearing hurry it dashed into the water and furiously swum under a log.

There is some beautiful aboriginal art work in this house. I have to say I do enjoy houses which have original artwork on the walls and sculpture. The sculpture in this particular house and in the pond all seems to be of naked women! To be fair, there are also a few sculptured herons in the pond.

I am definitely adding this house to the very select list of houses I would be happy to return to - now the cats are behaving in a more reasonable fashion.

Cat reconciliation

2007-08-01T15:57:00.000+09:30

Yesterday morning for no apparent reason the cats decided that they would socialise once again. They played happily for about an hour and then decided to start fighting (not too badly) over a comfy cardboard box. Or at least timid cat found the box and bully cat bullied her out of it and things started to look as though they were going to heat up. So I separated them once again.

Last night nervous wreck cat was looking afraid of bully cat and creeping around continually glancing over her shoulder so I kept them apart. This morning timid cat even deigned to eat with bully cat. I am taking no chances however and am keeping them in separate cat runs during the day however and apart at night as timid cat is still clearly somewhat afraid of the other.

It's zero tolerance for bullying while I'm around (!)- although I don't know how to clamp down on the big bully fish in the large pond- except by feeding fish in other areas until big bully fish turns up and starts chasing them away and hogging all the food!! As one friend suggested maybe it is time for that fish to disappear from the pond and reappear on a dinner plate. One of the lizards came out in the other pond enclosure and sunned itself on the log the other day and one of the turtles sat on a rock near it. I saw another of the lizards this morning.

The two hot water bottles I bought smelt like chemical factories and offended both me and the cats, so I bought one of a different brand which is fine and also a cover decorated with a ribbon with a pom pom at each end. I detached this and it provided hours of amusement for timid cat last night and this morning. Both cats love plastic bags as well with a somewhat worrying fetishistic pleasure. I'm not sure what to make of that!

It is certainly much easier when the cats rely on each other for amusement rather than on me and feeding them together is much easier! Bully cat was also starting to get depressed because she had nobody to bully!

Tucking the cat in

2007-07-27T16:41:00.000+09:30

Well the hot water bottles are now in full employ. The night before last I tempted the timid cat off my bed into the laundry with food. (You make these cats do anything by tempting them with food - well almost anything - I haven't been able to get them to clean up the kitchen or cook dinner.) I got the cat to jump into its cat basket which I had lined with a hot water bottle and towel and put a cat blanket over the cat (this cat loves sleeping right under covers), made sure it was happy and purring and left it for the night. Success!

This house really is beautiful and such a good place for both entertaining and working!

Disinfectant central

2007-07-25T15:00:00.000+09:30

Kirsty mentioned the ongoing stench of used kitty litter in her comment on my last post and as I found myself waxing on somewhat lyrical about this in my reply - I thought I would turn this subject into a new post.

A trip to the shops the other day resulted in a bottle of disinfectant and a can of Glen 20 and a bottle of disinfectant hand wash. The main bedroom area really stinks and I am hoping that the application of disinfectant and Glen 20 and open windows will resolve the problem. As one of the cats failed to use the kitty litter (on several occasions) when it was being attacked the first night and day I was here - disinfectant has had to be applied to several spots.

The kitty litter in the laundry downstairs wafts down the corridor towards my room at night as well - but that isn't quite as bad as the upstairs bedroom area which fortunately I can close off from the rest of the house.

I also bought two hot water bottles today to keep the cats warm at night. One of the cats I lock up in the main bedroom area but the other one who has the run of the house has started to use me as a hot water bottle -and I have to put a stop to that!

Not nearly as civilised as Brannagan of Dr. Who fame by any means!

Bushland setting

2007-07-25T07:18:00.000+09:30

I w moved in to my latest housesit last Tuesday bidding farewell to my magnificent but somewhat freezing and less than comfy stately home. The owners were happy with the way it had been looked after and I said I would look after it again next year - most unfortunately in winter again. It is most definitely a summer house - but the absence of pets is an attractive proposition and it is very handy to work and has some good takeaways and cafes. It is also a great house for entertaining - on a low key level of course!

The new house is a modern reproduction queenslander which has been really beautifully done -with beautiful modern wood furniture and specially commissioned leadlight. It is absolutely huge - two stories with 3 bedrooms, two laundries, 2 bathrooms, a large media room (with fully set up home theatre with projector), a wine cellar and 2 studies downstairs and upstairs a large open plan living area with very large plasma TV and huge kitchen, a main bedroom with sitting room and another plasma TV, ensuite and study and also another bathroom. There are verandahs all around the house both upstairs and downstairs.

The garden features a swimming pool and a large enclosure for turtles and lizards. The lizards are hibernating at present but I have seen one of the turtles swimming around in the tastefully done natural stream and log setting. There is also a large pond with about 50 largish fish - in summer at least - some of them have been taken away temporarily to warmer waters. There are catfish, pike, barramundi, flying fish and also a lung fish in its own separate area of the pond. This pond with two small fountains and waterlilies is overlooked by a kind of pergola with two very comfy chairs.

The garden is landscaped in a natural Australian style and there is mainly bushland around with other houses not too close. There are landscapers coming in every day to do work on the 'garden'. An inground concrete water tank has just been installed and there are other rainwater tanks up near the garage. There are two cars in the garage - one of them has gone with the owners.

So what is the blot on this idyllic scenario? In a word - the cats. I arrived to start the housesit and found one of the two cats cowering messily in a corner of the cat run after a monumental catfight. After a number of messy and loud cat confrontations in the main bedroom I decided after ringing the vet there was nothing for it but to keep the cats separate. There is only so much disinfectant and rubber gloves that I can take cleaning up the full panorama of cat bodily functions! For the first few days - even the sound of the bully cat miaowing in the distance was enough to make the victimised cat start hissing and spitting.

Fortunately the cats have the luxury of two very opulent and well equipped cat runs - one on the upstairs verandah and one downstairs - so during the day they get one each. In the evening they have to be let in the house - so I lock one in the main bedroom area - there is a kitty litter and food in the ensuite - and the other one - the raucous sociable - one gets to climb all over me which can be rather annoying actually especially when it wants to rub its head against my ear and when I am trying to eat something. When I am getting ready to go to bed I let the other less sociable cat out to have the run of the house and swap the cats over. The raucous cat miaows loudly when locked in the area - but at least now it is not miaowing continuously when I am out of sight.

Both cats are quite neurotic in different ways. One is a bully and the other one is a nervous wreck. They are both very demanding of attention. My theory is that they really need to be allowed outside to play in the dirt, to chase things and just do the things cats like doing. The both look extremely cute but their behaviour unfortunately reduces the cuteness factor considerably.

There are no less than 4 kitty litters that need cleaning every day - 2 in the cat runs and one in the main bedroom ensuite and one in one of the two downstairs laundries. Keeping the cats separate, feeding them, patting them and cleaning up after them takes quite a bit of time.

Anyway enough of this latest round of pesky pets. I have been getting a bit of work done in this lovely setting and plan to do a bit of cooking in the excellent kitchen and watch a few DVDs on the big screen.

Windy weather

2007-07-06T21:32:00.000+09:30

With the continued wild windy weather, looking after the pool is an ongoing chore. I got one bucket of leaves out of the pool yesterday and two buckets this morning. The gardener picked up the fallen banana tree and stuffed it in the large hessian garden bin for collection.

I only have a couple of weeks left now. I hope the next house is a bit warmer and a bit more comfortable to set up my work in. I have quite enjoyed being here nonetheless.

Unexpected visitor

2007-07-03T14:49:00.000+09:30

With all the recent windy weather and two liquid amber trees in the garden, the pool has become infested with leaves. This has put of a strain on the kreepy krauly and I have spent the last three mornings getting leaves out of the filters and resetting the kreepy. This pool has been relatively trouble free especially compared to the ghastly experience at the end of last year in the 3 month house sit.

The house has large folding glass doors at the back which open out onto the deck and the pool. I had these open on Sunday and went into one of the bedrooms to get ready to go out. I heard a slight noise and looked up and found I was being inspected by a large husky dog. Needless to say this caused me some concern. It turned away and after a brief exploration of the house went out again - I closed the doors after it exited.

I have already mentioned the cat that hides in the bushes. One day I was unloading groceries from the car and looked up and found it just sitting there watching me - enjoying the spectacle as it were. It runs away whenever I try and get near it however.

With the wind one of the banana trees has blown over as well. It is far too heavy for me to lift so I will have to leave it to the gardener.

I only have a fortnight to go in the house. I have quite enjoyed my stay, although it is pretty dark and cold and somewhat musty. The house has a good friendly atmosphere however and although it is not a house I would list amongst my favourites it has been quite livable. It has been particularly enjoyable house to invite people around to. The next house is far more contemporary and comfortable and much more my sort of place, so I am looking forward to that.

Cars

2007-06-06T08:08:00.000+09:30

Well, even though every blog and email list in Brisbane is probably announcing the same news - I have to write it here too. It is actually raining. It rained all last night and is still raining today. This is such a novelty that you can't help commenting on it!

I haven't mentioned the cars at the current housesit. The owners asked if I could start their cars each week to stop the batteries from going flat. Although I was able to figure out how to start the Mercedes, I had to ring the Alpha Romeo service centre to ask them how to start the Alpha. As the owner of an unsophisticated yet hardy 1991 Toyota Corrolla Seca which just needs a key to open the door and then turn in the ignition, I had no idea of the level of sophistication that some cars had reached.

Both cars started by inserting the remote control which opens and locks the doors into a slot - no keys. While this was easy to figure out for the Mercedes which had the slot in the same spot as the ignition key usually goes, mystery for the Alpha. This is what you in fact need to do for the Alpha: insert square remote into slot on dashboard, hold down clutch and then press a button on the dash labelled start/stop. That worked! I would be a hopeless car thief. I haven't tried starting the Audi yet. We'll see. This belongs to the son who has just gone overseas too.

I'm glad I didn't have to start the the vintage cars at the last house. Just looking at those was enough. When a friend asked if I secretly took them out for a bit of a drive - the very thought made me shudder with horror. Ferris Bueller's Day Off anyone?

I had to start the cars at the 3 month housesit I did last year as well, one was an old Toyota Camry and the other a small new Ford. (I think it was a Ford - I can't quite recall). I decided to move both cars a bit so the tyres sat on a different spot. Big mistake: I couldn't work out how to put the Ford into reverse. As with the Alpha there was nothing sensible like a manual in the glove box. That would be too easy. I went and knocked on the door of the retired next door neighbour who said he had been an engineer. He would be bound to know.

Well as the neighbour was somewhat eccentric this was not as straightforward as you would think. After much faffing around and pretending he didn't know what to do, he found a ring under the knob of the gearstick and lifting that in combination with moving the stick into the reverse position did the trick. The car also had a tyre that was almost flat. I persuaded the gardener to drive it down to the local garage with me in the passenger seat so we could pump up the tyre. I didn't want to do this on my own with hideous visions of what could go wrong!

Entries in this blog are a sure sign that I am procrastinating in the face of multiple essay marking. Back to work!

Pet nightmares

2007-06-05T15:36:00.000+09:30

Last night I dreamt I was house sitting and suddenly realised that I had completely forgotten to feed the pets since I had moved in. I can't remember whether or not they were dead as a result! This nightmare has been a recurring one since I started housesitting.Perhaps I dreamt it this time as I have no pets in my current house and I usually associate house sitting with pets. When I told a friend who owns four cats about this dream she said that the chances of it happening in reality are remote. Pets will certainly let you know if they are hungry in no uncertain terms!

It is rather odd to arrive home and not find an animal insistently pestering me for food. Actually although I complain about the pets - it is sort of okay having another live - even if annoying -presence around the house. Next house sit I will have two abyssinian cats who look quite nice. (I had better not speak too soon!)

There are certainly animals within close proximity of this current house. I frequently see a dark grey cat rushing under the house or peering out of the bushes. There is a possum which regularly scrapes and thumps around in the ceiling and has woken me up a few times in the small hours of the morning. One morning, said possum or other undefined animal spent about an hour scrabbling around in the dead palm fronds and leaves outside my window at around 4 in the morning - who needs sleep I say?

There is a terrier nearby who has spent the entire day today barking in a high pitched hysterical tone. It is a bleak grey and overcast day today - no rain of course and this weather combination and disconsolate barking sums up the alienation of the suburbs only too well.

And what am I doing at home today? I am once again marking essays - but this time with no cats to provide 'assistance'.

This lovely cat is no more unfortunately. It disappeared one day when another house sitter was looking after it. The theory is that it was got by a snake. The house was in the country and the cat had caught plenty of snakes itself. Obviously it lost a battle with one.

Small stately home

2007-05-30T13:17:00.000+09:30

I have moved into what is in effect a small stately home as you can see from this photo. This is only one of the areas in the house. It is huge. There is even a conservatory. The owners told me before they left that they were pleased they had a burglar alarm as when they got home they could be certain that nobody else was lurking in any of the rooms!

The house used to have grounds but these have been subdivided. It also has a small flat which looks as though it might have been the servant's quarters once. The owners are also very interested in antiques so the whole place is furnished with antiques - furniture, bronzes, vases, old prints and lithographs and modern art.

The atmosphere of the house is friendly and calm as though the house and furniture are happy that they are so well appreciated and admired. There is a really good sound system in the house with multiple speakers which is great for playing non stop music from the cafe digital radio station on foxtel.

Even if there are no grounds left - there is still a very large garden all around the house with a swimming pool, a non working fountain and lovely outdoor wrought iron furniture for sitting and having a pleasant cup of tea.

There are no pets although I have noticed a dark grey cat running out from under the house and lurking in the bushes on various occasions. Last night when I got home there was quite a racket in the ceiling in the chandelier rooms so I am guessing a possum has taken up residence in the roof. I will need to contact the owners about this. It is nice being able to come and go as I please without being tied down to feeding and walking times or worrying that the pets are getting too lonely because I have been out for too long. On the other hand I have got quite used to having pets in the houses I look after and sometimes they can be a bit of company -even if they insist on slavishly following you everywhere like the last pets!

One problem with an old house like this is that areas of it are quite dark and musty -even with the very high ceilings and large rooms. I do much better in contemporary spaces with lots of air and light and light coloured surfaces. The kitchen and informal dining area all have lots of glass onto the exterior - these areas have been modernised. One can get quite a bit of exercise just walking around inside the house it is so big.

All set for rest of the year

2007-05-07T09:19:00.000+09:30

Well, it looks as though I am all set for the rest of the year - until December 4 at least. I have just said yes to another house after the gothic mansion. I have only looked at this new house from the outside as yet. It was down a long easement - I racked my brains for excuses as to why I was there in case anybody accosted me (!) Fortunately the only encounter I had was with some disapproving chickens in another house bordering the easement who stood silently in a row and stared at me as I went past.

The description of the house I had before arriving was renovated worker's cottage with tennis court and pool. But I don't think 'worker's cottage' really did the house justice. Large two story reproduction queenslander was probably a better description with verandahs and water feature out the front. I didn't want to push my luck looking too closely for the pool and the tennis court - given the house was in a secluded gully down the end of a long private easement. The house next door up at the road end of the easement certainly did have a tennis court however!

I am also booked into a lovely house in the Sunshine Coast hinterland with a view out the back of rolling green hills. It has antique furniture, an orchid house and a front courtyard with a fountain and a rose garden. It towards the end of a long country lane on the ridge of a hill with other houses, so has the benefit of being in the country without being completely isolated. It is near the picturesque and well equiped towns of Maleny and Montville - full of beautiful shops (temptation!) and lots of alternative lifestylers.

In September I am planning to go to Paris and will buy the ticket tomorrow. Pity I can't organise a house sit for that as accommodation costs a fortune in Paris - but my dates are a bit too precise and I'm not too sure whether there is much of a house sitting culture in Paris.

Things are still going well at my current sit. The dogs continue to slavishly follow my every move and they are a shocker to take for a walk. Every time another dog even appears on the horizon, the king charles spaniel goes into hysterics and strains on the lead to get to the other dog which is somewhat embarassing for me as the walker. The spaniel is on medication of congestive heart failure and it wheezes around the place and snores loundly when asleep.

A house with two dogs always goes with the rather disgusting duty of having to collect all the dog poo from the lawns at regular intervals. I had a pee on the carpet incident as well (sigh).

Gothic mansion

2007-04-29T07:17:00.000+09:30

Yesterday I went around to meet the owners of a potential house sit to start a few days after this one finishes. The house was located in a suburb which has lots of old historic houses (at least for Brisbane!).

It iturned out to be an amazing house It is a huge old queenslander with a red tiled roof dating back to the turn of the century. It seems it has been home to some well-known Brisbane families but I wasn't able to glean many details. It used to be on large grounds - all subdivided now of course.

It is somewhat gothic and could be a bit scary and some of the rooms are pretty dark - but they are large with high ceilings - and it will certainly be an interesting experience. It has a cleaner, a gardener and a pool guy and lots of rooms including a separate conservatory and a large formal dining room and sitting room with chandeliers and even a small flat with its own kitchen and bathroom and separate garage to the main one. It's one of those houses which has wings. The house is also alarmed with a back to base system. The owners said they found it reassuring to come home and know that with the alarm system on there wasn't going to be anybody else lurking in any of the rooms (!)

Nice modern bathrooms and kitchen and great AV systems. There are no pets which will make a welcome change. It is also in an area of Brisbane which I don't know at all well (a new area to explore) but is only about 10 or 15 drive to work.

Bagpipes

2007-04-24T07:35:00.000+09:30

Well, it's been a long time since I have done any blogging! I am back in a house sit and as ever it is an adventure a minute. It is currently 8am and the next door neighbours have decided to launch into a lively bagpipe ditty. When I was looking after this very same house for 10 days at the end of February I had quite an extended bagpipe concert at 9.15pm one night. The piper plays well so it is not too painful.

This current house which I moved into last Friday to stay for a month is a very plush affair - only 3 years old with ducted airconditioning overlooking a golf course and is a mere 15 minutes drive from the city. There is an impressive study lined with antiquarian books - some of them 300 years old. There is a small fountain in the garden outside the window and a brass spyglass next to said window. The office is on the side of the house facing the street so there is nothing to look at beyond a small landscaped garden which has been put together with impeccable taste - a short camelia lined path to the house, large azaleas and a lawn which is going brown in this never ending and endlessly stressful drought. The study also includes decorations such as an old world globe on a stand, various antique brass objects on a small central stand which also houses a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The garage contains four cars - 2 vintage cars and 2 modern ones. There are trophies in the study which show that one of the vintage cars has frequently been best in show. Broadband and foxtel are also laid on - with a subscription to every channel of foxtel - I've been watching a few movies and the science fiction channel (although the latter has so many ads it can get frustrating to watch). Last night I watched the 1966 version of Beau Geste and the night before last The Fantastic Four - an amiable but not terribly good film a waste of Ioian Gryffid and Jessica Alba - who looks terrible with bleached blond hair.

So where's the drawback you may ask? The answer is of course - need I even spell it out? - the pets. There is a weimerana and a King Charles spaniel and although they are both very decorative, they follow my every single move like a pair of padding and panting shadows. I have never come across such slavishly devoted dogs. I go down the stairs (it's a three story house - although the bottom story is just one storage room really) - they follow, I go up the stairs they follow, I move from one side of the room to the other - they follow. Aaaaaargh!

The spaniel snores her head off when she is asleep which is quite annoying when you are sitting there trying to get some work done. They are difficult to take for walks as they rush all over the place. I have the big weimerana on an extendable lead which makes it a bit easier and the little one on a chain lead. They are both quite old and both on medication so at least walks don't have to be marathon affairs. I have worked out a route where I can avoid other dogs. The last time I was here the first day I took them out for a walk, the weimerana got involved in a dog fight - not a bad one fortunately!

I need to leave them in the garage when I go out and at night - which means I can't go out for too long a period as I have to let them out so they can go to the loo in the garden. Poor things - I'm sure they are bursting in the garage sometimes!

Anyway I must add an update on the housesit I did over the New Year which had a fantastic view of the fireworks and the city (drawback? pets!) but I will save that for another day.

In the lap of luxury at last!

2006-12-30T12:51:00.000+09:30

Well, I never thought I would get out of that house with Bargearse. Apparently she bit the owner as soon as she came back. I had lunch with the owner shortly after her return and she gave me a really lovely small African statue of a very fat cat she had picked up on her travels to remind me of Bargearse. It seems Bargearse is still unrelentingly up to her tricks and ruling the roost in the house even with the dog back. The owner had a friend staying in the bedroom I had stayed in. The cat rushed in when she went out to the loo at night and couldn't be ousted from the bed and then took a swipe at the visitor when she tried to get her off. A familiar story indeed! The visitor was then forced to sleep the rest of the night with the cat on the bed. I bet Bargearse thought it was me.

Straight after that house sit finished I went up to the Sunshine Coast to look after a really beautiful house for a week. It was a very large two-story house with a grand piano and home theatre system in one room downstairs and another huge home theatre system upstairs. I pressed the wrong button the first night and spent about an hour trying to figure out how to get the high definition set topbox to show up on the plasma screen again! There was a really nice pool which looked like a rockpool under a large shade cloth in the back garden and a kind of studio attached to the house as well.

The pets were fabulously well behaved – the best pets I have ever looked after. One was a lovely Burmese cross cat and the other a cockatiel. They are both really shy and were frightened of me when I arrived. The cat hissed at me a couple of times and the cockatiel trembled and puffed up its feathers when I went near it. The cat when it discovered that all I did was sit around, watch television and tap on the computer soon came around.

It was like having a toy cat and restored my faith in feline kind. It looked beautiful with a black face, legs and tail and cream body and longish (but not too long) fur. It loved being brushed and having its neck scratched, purred really loudly, didn't jump on my bed at night and didn't wake me at 5am every morning. It also didn’t hassle me for food. It jumped on my bed one night – purred for a couple of seconds and then jumped off again. It was also really cute when it played with its pink ping pong ball. Every evening around 5 or 6 it would go and miaow outside the internal garage door – clearly missing its owners. The bird just sat in its cage, looked really grumpy and slept most of the time. No problem at all.

I am at present typing this on the front patio of an award winning house on the Gold Coast. Right in front of me is a small swimming pool and then a fence and then several boats parked on the canal. The owners went away for a few days on their launch which was moored right in front of this house - 10 yards from the patio. It is a two story house with 5 bedrooms, a study and 3 bathrooms. It also has fly screens and blinds on all the windows – the ideal house as far as I’m concerned! Right behind me are two basset hounds - one of them snoring extremely loudly. They both snore actually. There is a home cinema with a projector and a screen that would be fine in a small commercial cinema. I have made full use of this I must say.

The first night here I borrowed the first season of The 4400 on DVD from a video rental shop and watched it until the projector suddenly exhibited a high temperature powering down message on the screen. It took me a couple of hours to figure out how to get rid of the flashing led light and turn the fans off. I didn't want to turn it off completely in case I did something drastic to. I eventually very carefully unplugged the power chord that ran out the back of the machine which was fixed to the ceiling. There was no mains switch. That worked, thank God. Reading manuals on the net had informed me that a red flashing LED meant the lamp was dead. Not something I really wanted to happen to an expensive projector under my care! A very luxurious leather home theatre couch is placed right in front of the screen. I really like this whole projector, large screen concept...

The basset hounds are a bit of a handful. Basset hounds are very large dogs and these both have the droopy eyes and floppy ears which dunk into their water bowl when they drink. One of them is sensible and no trouble, but the other one gets very anxious when I go out and is a bit stubborn when it comes to doing things she shouldn’t do – eg sitting on the home theatre couch and walking up the stairs to the second story. I went for a short walk this morning and she whimpered and barked until I go back. She has a very loud bark which echoed thunderously across the canal. She also whimpered when the owners left. They also hassle me for food a lot when I am cooking or eating and don't give up even after I have given them a biscuit each. Cleaning up in the morning is also a bit of a chore. They are not allowed to use the garage as a toilet - but they do, particularly when it is wet apparently - so mop and bleach are on hand. They only have a narrow concrete side alley between the house and the fence for bodily functions - so shovel and scoop, mop, bleach and hose it is!

Thw owners were a bit worried about having somebody look after them and thought they might be too much of a handful, but I assured them that my experience with pets was numerous and varied as you my faithful blog readers will testify! They are certainly by no means the most difficult pets I have looked after and are both very good natured.

I took them for a walk this morning - they are very slow and get tired out quickly. I got to use retractable leads for the first time. I must say I am a total convert. Dogs are a pain to walk when they rush all over the place sniffing things – the retractable lead makes it a lot easier. I will buy a couple of these for future use. Two houses both with two dogs are next on the list… This house sit finishes tomorrow.

Incidentally I bought myself a beautiful second hand G4 Mac lap top on ebay at the bargain price of $450 just before I went up to Noosa and it is making my life so much easier on these housesits! Previously I had been lugging my desktop around with me – which with the CRT monitor not only weighed a ton but posed difficulties sometimes in terms of where I was going to set it up in the house I was looking after. At one housesit, for example, the only viable place to set it up was the kitchen bench – which was not very satisfactory. This way I can sit with a view in front of me and work.

tasty garden inhabitants

2006-12-05T15:14:00.000+09:30

Two more days left to go... I can't believe it!

I took Bargearse to the vet last Sunday. I had noticed two big swellings on her gut and could feel them when I picked her up. I thought of leaving it till the owners got back (10 more ghastly days!!) but then I thought if she was my cat I would take her to the vet now - one doesn't want to leave things till they get out of hand. All is well fortunately! The swellings are just fat pads - the vet said they were called powder puffs. The irony is that they are only noticeable now because she has got thinner (!) He weighed her and she is currently 6.25 kilos and needs to take off another kilo. She also needs a good brush to get rid of the winter undercoat - but I will leave that up to the owners who didn't leave me with any brushes or combs or flea or worm treatments (I got the vet to help me out on the flea and worm front).

The vet gave her fur a bit of a comb which she didn't like at all and started doing her cat thing of growling and trying to bite. She started to investigate the vet surgery in her usual bold fashion after being weighed. Once again she was pretty happy when we got home - she actually seems to enjoy going for a ride in the car and out to the vet. The vet has 11 cats living at the surgery (!) He clearly loves cats.

On Saturday I came home before lunch after yoga and found a whole lot of feathers in the computer room. Clearly she had eaten the rest of the bird. Later that afternoon, I saw her chasing and eating a lizard in the same room. It seems to be her snack dining room as I have seen her eat a few things in there. The other day I saw her crunching on an absolutely humungous insect - possibly an oversize cicada in the room as well. I left her to this disgusting experience and came back later - all that remained were a couple of wings on the floor. Limiting her diet in the food bowls would be only partially successful as she snacks so extensively on what the garden has to offer!!

The pool continues to cause problems. This time it looks as though an adaptor on the power supply failed and the pool people had to punch a hole in the fibro enclosure around the filter to gain access.

The 40 degree day last week managed to roast the garden and some of the plants have badly burnt leaves. I went for an interview for an absolutely magnificent house yesterday and half of their small back lawn had been turned brown and dead by that really hot day.

Getting there

2006-11-24T17:14:00.000+09:30

2 more weeks left to go...

After more problems with the pool - a non functional kreepy krawly, a leaking chlorinator and a timer on the filter set to run all night, I have finally got it all working properly after more than two months of problems. I mentioned that the neighbours across the road had got a new pool installed. Well, it would seem the filter is now switched on. It makes a loud humming noise at a really annoying frequency. Just what one needs when one is trying to get to sleep late at night or get back to sleep at 5 in the morning.

Bargearse is still up to her tricks. Biting, scratching (if you don't get out of the way of the claws quickly enough) and constantly pestering me for food. It is very hot today -she hates the hot weather and goes and sits on the bathroom floor to try and cool down.

I don't think I'll know myself once I get out of here. I have a housesit at the Sunshine Coast for a week which starts the day after this one finishes. I'm really looking forward to that. I haven't had a chance to visit the Sunshine Coast since I started house sitting! At the end of December I have a fantastic house on a canal down at the Gold Coast for a few days. That will be great!

Pool back in action

2006-11-08T06:48:00.000+09:30

I looked out this morning and discovered that the kreepy krawly was working. Inspection revealed that a replacement head had finally arrived and the neighbour's non working kreepy was now sitting beside the pool, It has taken about a month to sort this pool problem out. It's fairly warm and humid today - humid after all the recent rain. This house is a lot better in warm weather. Bargearse is sitting out in the garden for a change, getting some fresh air and sunlight which is good for her. She always seems very cautious when going outside and tiptoes around carefully. She is probably afraid one or both of those cats from next door is going to jump out at her.

Huge piles of essay marking are waiting - what an exciting prospect! Well, Bargearse will think so anyway.

Kitty panic attack

2006-11-07T21:54:00.000+09:30

I had a bit of a struggle with Bargearse last night. It was raining fairly heavily outside - which as I have mentioned before is a bit of a novelty these days. I decided it was time for me to go to sleep so as is the usual routine, I turfed Bargearse off my bed and closed the bedroom door. After a while, some truly pathetic miaowing and scratching under the door ensued. Feeling sorry for the poor cat, I opened the door and she rushed in, jumped on my bed and proceeded claws out to grab my foot which was under a sheet and then bite it. This was somewhat painful (!) so I subtracted my foot from her clutches and tried to persuade her to leave the room. She was having none of that and dug her claws in and stayed on the bed. I tried enticing her out with a rattling biscuit box. No deal – only a vicious swipe of the claws which produced some spectacular scratches and blood at my end.

Thoroughly annoyed now, and after a liberal application of dettol and bandaids to injured parts of my anatomy – I tried to oust her by upending some of the bed clothes and inviting her to leave the room in a somewhat loud voice. No result. After some thought, I eventually got some of her morning tuna on a spoon and held it near her nose. Aha – the moment of truth! But after firmly closing the door on a cat free environment more frantic miaowing outside ensued and I carefully eased myself out of the room once again – making sure all passage was blocked. I gave the cat a few cautious pats, then managed to pick her up without being clawed. I next tried putting her on another bed and giving her some things to play with - namely a few essays I had just marked – she seems to enjoy biting those. This seemed to calm her down a bit combined with a lessening in the volume of rain falling.

Alas, this was only a temporary calm. At 5 am, woken by more loud miaowing I found the cat spreadeagled midway up the flyscreen door that leads from my bedroom to the front deck. When I got up to look at this spectacle, she disappeared followed by loud thudding of paws as she tore around to the inside door of the bedroom in the expectation of food.

She seems pretty subdued today after all those nocturnal efforts. I have a few more essays to entertain her with tomorrow morning, for when she is back to her usual frisky self.

Still counting down

2006-11-06T06:07:00.000+09:30

5 more long weeks to go...

If I am not overly enamoured of the house here - it is in a nice area and it is right next to a national reserve of bushland. It is really nice to go for walks down the streets with the houses on one side and the bush on the other. There is also one bit on a hill overlooking the local Pony Club where you can see a rather large bushcovered hill (Mt. Coot-tha) with the television towers on top against the sky. I rather enjoy that view. Yesterday there was a spectacular red sunset which made it even more enjoyable.

There is also a walk across a small park and then up a hill which takes you beside fields of horses and then some very nice contemporary homes on top of a hill with a great view. I have taken the opportunity of course to leave my house sitting card in the letter boxes of these particular houses! These homes have an experimental arrangement whereby all their grey water is recycled and they can save up to 75% of the town water normally used by houses. Speaking of town water, these houses also overlook a recently recommissioned dam. It actually rained all day Saturday which was a relief to one and all. Rain has become such a rare occurrence that it is reported on the news with comments about how much and whether or not it fell in dam catchment areas. I am always delighted to have the very dry garden watered for me!

There are large numbers of brush turkeys and sulphur crested cockatoos around in addition to the imported animal life of dogs and cats. Bargearse is definitely getting thinner but is no means anywhere near approaching anorexic. She is still impossible to pat without taking an extreme risk. She jumped out at me a couple of times recently as I was walking along - but she has learnt to keep the claws in when she does this. She knows when she has been bad as her ears go back and her eyes close after a bite or a scratch because she gets a loud protest from me. Still I have fun playing with her - making sure I keep my distance. She follows me around and would stay on my bed all night if I let her. Sometimes she runs around the house just for fun and is always pouncing on and eating moths and gekkos (which is fairly disgusting) - so she certainly doesn't suffer from lack of exercise!!

I took her to the vet about 3 weeks ago. Food at the back of the cat crate got her in there. It was a bit of a struggle getting her out of the crate at the vet's and she had to be held down once she was out. I had taken her to the vet because she had started shaking her head. Fortunately she didn't have ear canker - instead the tips of her ears were all red and inflamed from being eaten by multiple mosquitos!!! (I have also suffered somewhat on that front as well at the house).

So the vet gave her a cortisone injection and prescribed some fly repellent for dogs and horses (!) She was also overdue for a worm treatment (they told me at the vets) and anti flea treatment. I had asked the owners about flea treatment before they left but they left no treatments or instructions. I got another anti flea treatment from the vet that I could apply in a month. Surprisingly Bargearse was really docile for the rest of the day and seemed to have enjoyed the outing and the ride in the car and later in the day even made an attempt to get back in my car.

After yet more catfights, I decided to bring the kitty litter from home that I had bought for the last house sit and put it on the front deck at night. I tried blocking the access under the front deck door out into the garden but after 3 nights of this, the cat seemed to go into a deep depression. I came home one evening – no cat rushing to the door begging for food. Instead she was lying on my bed where she had been when I left in the morning. I thought at first she had been paralysed by a tick but extensive prodding and biscuit box rattling produced an ambulatory result (thank goodness!). Now I am just leaving the kitty litter on the front deck and the access unblocked so she has a choice about whether to go out or not at night. She seems to take the kitty litter option mostly and I have had no problems with cat fights over the last two weeks.

Last week I had to take one of the owners' cars to the garage as one of the tyres was almost flat and I pumped it up. I got the gardener to come to the garage with me on this expedition in the interests of making sure that nothing went wrong! I think the tyre has a slow leak in it – it was fairly flat already when I moved in. I have been starting the engines in the 2 cars each week to keep the batteries active.

The pool also fell apart. The wiring in the chlorinator corroded through and had to be replaced and the plastic bits on the head of the Kreepy Krawly fell apart - the pool people are waiting for parts on that one. One of the neighbours is being annoying ‘helpful’ with all this. He called around to tell me the obvious – ie that the pool had gone green and brown. The pool maintenance people call around once a month. Then one day I came home and found the Kreepy Krawly appeared to have been replaced – but wasn’t working and the section of hose that was leaking hadn’t been replaced. I rang up the Pool maintenance people and they provided no indication they were responsible for this- so I just put it down to one of those mysteries of the universe. Then a few days later the same neighbour told me that he was responsible for this. I think perhaps he may need some instruction in the non interference rule of house sitting! His attempts to be helpful are actually not – as it makes it difficult to see whether the pool people have been around or not and the head that he has attached doesn’t actually work (Sigh).

There it all is – up to date now! Large piles of marking now await… The cat always enjoys me marking as she can sit on the bed with me and occasionally attack the essays or better still the eraser which she absolutely loves playing with for some reason!

Moths and gekkos

2006-10-09T21:39:00.000+09:30

My birthday today! I remember clearly last year's birthday - it was the last morning of a sit with two tenterfield terriers and a nice house. It was a beautiful day too!

I got home late tonight after celebrating and of course, as is the routine, gave Bargearse some food as soon as I got in the door . She then decided to jump up on the kitchen bench and stare at the ceiling for a while - no moths or gekkos that I could see and even if there had been they would have been out of reach. Then she tried to drink the remnants of my cup of green tea from this morning. Hmmmm... I keep finding moth wings on the floor - the remnants of a tasty treat from the looks of it. The other evening I saw her playing with a gekko and later heard disgusting crunching eating noises on the front deck.

On Sunday morning I found chunks of fur on the wooden walkway just outside the door to the front deck. Clearly Bargearse had had a narrow escape again from the cat next door - which can't follow her as she squeezes under the door onto the deck. I think this happened before I got home after pre birthday celebrations on Saturday night! I finally saw her doing the contortionist act of getting under that door yesterday.

Things have been so much better since the new regime of shutting the back door. The cat is a lot less aggressive - well - on the whole. I got bitten yesterday after she jumped on my lap.

BTW, 9 weeks left to go...

The benefits of closed doors

2006-10-02T13:30:00.000+09:30

Earlier in this blog I mentioned the 'non interference rule of housesitting'. Well, there are definitely times this needs to be overridden. Having the back door closed for the last two nights has been great - no cat fights and no mosquitos! The cat seems to be able to squeeze under the front verandah door to get out into the garden. I haven't actually seen her do it - but it must be an impressive sight given how fat she still is.

Hopefully the invading cats - which I am presuming are one or both of the two tom cats from next door - won't be able to get onto the front verandah. The owners mentioned before I left that poor Bargearse had ended up at the vets on a few occasions after encounters with these cats.

Another incident

2006-10-01T09:20:00.000+09:30

The night before last the unmistakable sounds of another cat fight woke me up. I got up and found another cat in the house - which I duly chased out and then found the toilet area floor covered with cat poo, urine and chunks of fur. I left the mop and disinfectant exercise until the next morning. Well, to look on the bright side, at least the cats were considerate enough to avoid the carpet! I feel as though I am living in a public park. As of last night the back door will remain firmly closed every night. The cat can come and go via the door on the front deck. The front deck is much more difficult to access from the garden. The cat seems to find her way on and off it - so I don't think I will need a kitty litter. I hope this will solve the problem. If not, there will be nothing for it but to shut the cat in the house at night and get the kitty litter tray I purchased for the last sit.

Sigh... After that cumulation of 3 days of incidents I seriously felt like just packing my bags and leaving yesterday morning. I'm afraid I am now up to counting down the weeks until I leave. Here it is... 4 weeks down - 10 left to go. I can do it yes I can!!!

Sleep deprivation

2006-09-29T06:43:00.000+09:30

As I mentioned, the people across the road are getting a new swimming pool put in. I might mention it is a very small street and all the houses are close together. It really is a live in your neighbours’ pockets street. Three vans arrived at 4.30 am and then the concrete truck arrived at 5.30 am. It is now 7 am and the house is filled with fumes and the deafening noise of revving concrete truck. I’m a corpse after only 4 and a half hours sleep. I am trying to mark my unending and highly uninspiring pile of essays and Bargearse has taken up residence on my bed as she usually does when I get up in the morning. Yesterday she hissed at me twice and bit me once – a fairly average day for Bargearse!

Yesterday morning the whole neighbourhood was galvanized by blood curdling screams from the house just next to the swimming pool house at 7.30 in the morning. A number of people rushed over to the house and an ambulance eventually arrived with no siren and stayed for a long time. I missed seeing the stretcher being carried out. I was convinced that the woman had either been viciously attacked, or a husband or one of the children had died. On enquiring from my next door neighbour it transpired however, that the woman had slipped and broken her ankle. I was so relieved that it was not the drastic scenarios I had imagined but before I found out this news it did put somewhat a spanner in the works of the early morning essay marking session I had planned.

The next door neighbour is a nice man – a retired engineer. We both had a look at the pool yesterday and agreed that it needed a visit from the pool shop. He dismantled the kreepy krauly and skimmer box and couldn’t put it back together. Fortunately I managed to do so myself – but not before being bitten copiously by the resident mosquito population.

To add to my woes this morning, I had typed some of this entry and the browser unexpectedly closed down and didn’t save the post! So I am taking the precaution this time of writing it in word and doing a copy and paste. All in all, I think I am right to be currently outrageously picky about my house sitting choices!

Offers flooding in

2006-09-27T16:23:00.000+09:30

Well, I turned down the offer I was made yesterday after some agonising. They sounded like very nice owners. But then somebody else rang and made me another offer today. I think I may probably turn that one down as well. It is in a good area but the house doesn't sound too exciting. I'll go and have a look at the outside of the house tomorrow and make a decision then. At this rate I don't think I really need to worry that I might be out of a job if I don't take the first thing that comes along.

The cat ate your essay

2006-09-26T17:04:00.000+09:30

Bargearse has been up to her tricks again. Last night produced two wild screeching and racing through the house incidents. In the second one at 1 am I got up and found another cat had chased her into the house - I shooed out this second cat. I feel as though I am living at cat battle central HQ. She also attacked one of my essays this morning and left some teeth puncture marks in it. How often does the marker of an essay get to say to the student - the cat ate your essay???

I got offered another house sit today for end of next January, but on perusing the house from the outside it doesn't look terribly enticing. I might turn this one down too. I need to see whether my new tactic of accepting only stuff I really like will work. Longer than two weeks over the Christmas break would be good as well - maybe a month to 6 weeks in a really nice place. I'll hope for the best.

Decisons, decisions...

2006-09-25T22:26:00.000+09:30

I turned down two house sit offers today - both of them sounded really quite nice but they were both only 2 weeks long from 23 Dec to 6 Jan. If either of them had been longer I would have been interested. One was an apartment near the river with a cat and the other was a contemporary house in a nice neighbourhood with 2 cats. I am going to hang out for something a bit longer. There's plenty of time before December for something to come up.

Just before I started this entry - Bargearse raced into the house at full pelt with a dreadful screech and hid behind my bed. She tends to do a bit of that at night! I keep my bedroom door shut when I'm asleep so she has to take refuge in the other rooms. It is either the cats next door or possums who produce this extreme reaction I think!

Swimming pools and the drought

2006-09-25T07:41:00.000+09:30

This house has a rather fine swimming pool, but like all pools it is a fair amount of work to maintain - removing leaves with the net and from the skimmer box, making sure the kreepy krauly is working, keeping chlorine levels up -although there will be a pool maintenance guy doing the latter.

The neighbours around here, whom I met the week before I moved in, are a nice bunch. I ran into one of them yesterday and she told me that they were having a pool installed. She said it was for the children, so they didn't have to keep visiting the neighbour's pool. Sure enough, this morning - crash bang - the pool installers arrived. There's going to be a few mornings like this - well good discipline - I shouldn't be slothing around in bed! One has to wonder, however, at the wisdom of installing a pool with imminent level 4 water restrictions looming. Pool manufacturers and installers must be getting worried at the possible or already existing loss of custom. One of the owners of a previous house sit told me the other day that he was getting the outside of his house washed before the new restrictions came in. House washers will also be out of business.

Also on this drought, as my good friend and native Brisbanite Zimble pointed out to me, a lot of new houses have been built in Brisbane since the drought began. Many of these houses lack screens - screens of course block the view and the breeze. A huge number of people have also moved here in recent times - none of them have been exposed to the extreme mosquito, giant flying cockroach, swarming moth, pullulating cane toad populations and debilitating humidity that were the norm in non drought stricken times. These new additions to Brisbane's badly planned urban explosion are livng in an illusory bubble of virtually insect free dryness. It remains to be seen what happens if this drought ever breaks and Brisbane returns to its old climate - a climate which has driven away several of my acqaintance in past years to cooler climes. I hail from Sydney myself - but have always enjoyed Brisbane - and liked the exotic extremes of the old climate.

Reformed cat

2006-09-24T21:11:00.000+09:30

The last three days have seen a complete change in Bargearse. She is no longer jumping on my lap when I work on the computer -or only for a minute and then off again, doesn't follow me around like a shadow and only pesters me sometimes for food. It is still a big risk trying to pat her however! But she is far less aggressive in general. She is also gradually getting thinner on the correct amount of food. This is a photo of her relaxing on the couch in front of the television after she got turfed off my lap. Still not thin by any means! I was rather worried by this sudden change in behaviour and rang a friend who used to show champion cats. 'You have won', she said. 'You are now alpha cat'. I think it is much better for the cat - not to be so aggressively competing all the time.

I have now got used to living in this house and am having a reasonably good time. The weather is getting warmer and because there are two doors left open for the cat, I am being eaten alive by mosquitos in the evening. I tried putting on some insect repellent, but even the 'low scent' stuff gives me a sore throat and a headache. I am a firm believer in fly screens. Large moths fly in as well. Bargearse is very interested in these but I haven't seen her catch one yet. The pathetic disappointed miaows when she is deprived of this disgusting furry snack to supplement the strict diet are rather funny. Sometimes at night I hear running around and crashes as stuff falls to the ground - no doubt more moth hunting - or gekkos - I saw her spying on one of those with interest last night. For such a fat cat she is incredibly active.

I am now in full search mode for future house sits and read with interest a handy hint offered by a couple of house sitters on one of the sites about not booking too far in advance - unless you really want the sit. I have noticed this myself - houses are always coming up and people don't arrange for a sitter until the last moment. I think it is worth hanging out for something that you like. Anyway - I will try this as a new strategy.

Settling in

2006-09-17T20:44:00.000+09:30

I'm starting to feel a bit more comfortable in this house sit. Asking three friends around for dinner last night certainly helped. Two of them plus me all had headaches! I blame the weather -which has been very erratic of late - hot then cold, dry then wet, windy and then not.

Bargearse seems to be settling down a bit and hopefully is losing a bit of weight with a snack free diet. I will take some photos at the end of my stay as well (before and after shots of course!). I have been leaving the hot water bottle out for her at night.

It was really nice having people around for dinner - I got a fire going in the woodfire stove but it didn't really kick into gear until everybody left so I had a nice warm house while I was doing the cleaning up and washing up. Fires can be tricky.. Bargearse sat - or rather slept - in a chair at the dinner table, made an attempt at the dip and found the walking stick of one of my friends of great interest. She is by no means a shy cat. I actually rather like Bargearse, unlike the last cat!

On the hunt

2006-09-15T10:28:00.000+09:30

I am now on the hunt for house sits to follow on from this one. I am going to be very careful about what I agree to from now on! Only houses that I really like - as opposed to 'yes, I suppose I could survive this one'. One man's meat is another man's poison etc. etc. I've actually already turned down 3 offers - which were all unsuitable for various reasons. I put in a bid for one that looked really nice a few days ago, but the owners haven't responded which means they have probably chosen somebody else.

Whenever I start using this computer the cat jumps on my lap. It is quite hard typing with a fat cat sitting on your lap. I am very much looking forward to getting the next house sit lined up as it will give me something to look forward to after this one. In any case, just returning home will be something good to look forward to! Now I've got used to sharing my home base, long periods at home should be okay. I should be able to set up a very nice balance between homebase and house sitting.

My first 'professional' house sit

2006-09-13T07:41:00.000+09:30

I have been meaning for a while to write about some of the house sits I haven't written up in this blog as yet. I might as well start with the first one. When I initially decided to housesit - I started off confident that I would have no trouble finding something - and in a bold move I took an opportunity offered to share my flat with a visiting academic couple. I had to find a house sit before they arrived. Two months went past however and I was seriously worried as I had had no response to any of my advertisements. The Australian House sitters directory - where my main advert was - after promising great things - was certainbly not an overwhelming source of offers. The problem was, of course, that the ratio of housesitters to homeowners was too high and lottery effects started to come into play.

But then one Friday night when I least expected it I got a ring. At first I hesitated as the house was a fair distance from work, but a trip down the freeway revealed it was only a 20 minute drive (when it wasn't peak hour!). The dates were right and although the house sit wasn't very flash - essentially a granny flat next to the garage under the house, it was very clean and organised and the owners were lovely people. It also had the added advantage of zero pets. The garden which was huge and complicated was a somewhat daunting prospect however - but I was ready! Both owners and myself were nervous - this was the first time either of us had engaged in house sitting arrangements! Then followed an agonising day while the owners made up their mind - fortunately they were interested. More soon...

The aesthetics of tea

2006-09-12T17:00:00.000+09:30

In my ongoing quest to have beautiful things around me on house sitting jobs, I bought a beautiful tea tin from a Japanese homewares shop. I also finally consulted the camera manual about how to take close up photos! I can now admire this lovely tin while I make my cups of green tea.

Things improving

2006-09-08T07:57:00.000+09:30

Well, Bargearse the cat seems to be getting a bit better and I am getting better at not provoking claws and teeth out. The other morning she ran after me, grabbed my foot with her claws and bit me because she didn't like the breakfast I had given her - food all left for me by the owners! She is now realising I think that that's all she's going to get. I think my bedroom door will have to stay firmly shut for the duration as she is onto my bed like at shot at night if I let her.

I bought a pink organza curtain to add to the draperies in my bedroom. I am trying to put myself into a cheerful mellow cocoon so I feel okay living in this house. Lots of going out with friends, trying to catch up with an impossible work load should all help!

Feline aggression

2006-09-06T07:14:00.000+09:30

I have now moved into a new house sit. I had arranged this one last year and have been having doubts about it ever since I said yes. It is reasonably okay but not incredible – certainly not as bad as the last one, but by no means one of the best. A somewhat depressing vista of 3 months stretches before me... It is not really super clean and the bedrooms are a bit dark and it is all a bit musty. Just as well it has bars on everything so I can keep windows and doors open for fresh air. I did some serious dusting with a damp wettex and showerpower the first evening I moved in. The cupboard in the bedroom which has a louvre door was brown with years of dust.

The television is clearly on its last legs. All the vertical lines that should be straight at the side of the screen are curved. The foxtel digital box has stopped working a couple of times already and when I looked for the powerpoint to reset it – I found it was completely inaccessible behind the TV cabinet. The only way to turn off the power to the box was to turn it off at the mains. I brought my own cordless phone from home as the two phones in the house are ones with cords, are both covered with dust and stink of perfume. I put on rubber gloves to undo the difficult to access jack on one phone - the jack was covered with years of dust and just behind the dust covered bedhead in the main bedroom. I moved a dusty bedside set of drawers to get to it.

There were also perfumed sachets in the drawers in the chest of drawers in my bedroom so I have moved the sachets downstairs to the garage and put the drawers out to air on the back deck. I have to say perfumes and air fresheners are the bane of my life in house sits and holiday accommodation.

The cat is very fat and has long brown and orange fur. I have decided to call her Bargearse as in the D Generation’s classic revoiced 1976 Australian TV police series – just because she is so fat and is always trying to push me around. She can come and go as she pleases through the bars, so I don't have to worry about kitty litters and keeping her in at night or putting her out during the day.

The night before last she jumped on my bed at 3am and then scratched me (it really hurt and there was blood!) when I tried to get her off. She jumped on my bed at 6am and took up the whole bed. Last night it jumped up onto my lap while I was working on the computer with no invitation from me but then it scratched and bit my hand while I was moving it towards the mouse and clawed the front of my dressing gown.

After this I did a google search on ‘cat aggression’ and discovered that the cat is exhibiting signs of ‘status aggression’. According to one site: ‘Cats have a social system in which some individuals rank higher than others. Occasionally, cats attempt to manipulate their owners in a manner called assertion, or status-related aggression. This aggression usually develops at social maturity (2 to 4 years of age).’ Another site lists blocking access to doorways, refusing to be moved from sleeping areas, aggression while being patted. The first site notes “Cats with status-related aggression sometimes dislike attention, reject petting, or consistently block their owner’s path….Cats that exhibit status-related aggression often solicit attention by jumping into their owner’s lap and then bite if they are petted or shifted’

Yes, tick to all of the above! The sites offer various strategies to deal with this. I think I will use the ones which involve not paying any attention to the cat when it misbehaves and walking away from it. I closed the door of my bedroom last night to keep the cat out. The room is pretty musty but it has a security window and door to the verandah which I can keep slightly ajar. The cat will also just have to eat the food it is given – which the owners have left for me. The only thing it likes are the biscuits but I will persist with the meat and fish in the morning. I figure that it will eat it when it gets hungry enough. It actually ate its food this morning. I think it is beginning to realise that I am not going to put up with any nonsense! It will need more training however - it keeps following me around and attacks me when it gets close.

I have done a few things to make myself more comfy and happy in the house sit. I bought some nice light blue organza curtains from Loot and draped them over furniture in my bedroom and it now looks a lot more cheery. I have also installed my usual light blue and yellow sheets and blue and yellow blankets and my colourful Ken Done quilt. I also had already bought some really good towels from David Jones - a whole set including bath towel, hand towel, bathmat and facecloth - so I would have luxurious towels to enjoy on house sits. I’m really glad I did this – they are a lovely cheery light green in the bathroom. Having colours around that I like makes a big difference I find. Incidentally, just finding Ken Done's site for the link here makes me realise just how much I like his work with all the beautiful colours he uses.

To tell the truth, I am really hanging out for nice light and airy houses with views and with well-adjusted pets -if I can't have zero pets. I am going to be very careful about what I take on in future – it has to be attractive enough to make me want to leave my home base. I will have to make sure I have flatmates at homebase I can share with easily so I can stay there for long periods of time if there are no suitable house sits on offer. There are certainly enough house sits to keep one occupied full time but I think I would rather have just ones I like - even if it means there are gaps in between.

Pros and cons of house sitting

2006-08-25T08:30:00.000+09:30

I was asked by a freelance journalist writing for the London Financial Times to comment on whether I would recommend house sitting to others and came up with the following:

It is certainly not a lifestyle for everybody. One has to be very adaptable to new environments, to not mind living out of a suitcase and to have a strong practical sense in order to manage and find solutions to any problems that may arise with house maintenance and with the pets. One also has to be adept at finding one's way around new neighbourhoods in terms of shops and other facilities. Packing and unpacking with each house sit and cleaning the house when you leave also takes quite a bit of time and effort and can get a bit wearing.

I find it is essential to have a home base for somewhere to stay between house sits and when one needs a break from it all. You also need it as a place to store your own possessions. In addition to this, it also acts as an anchored point of reference through all the moves. My solution is to rent a cheap room in a shared flat and keep my room locked up while I am away. I hold the lease on the flat and all the furniture in the flat is mine so I can choose who I share with and feel comfortable when I am actually staying in the flat.

Because I am in charge of the lease and arrangements I don't have to worry as much that problems will develop in my absence and the household will break up and I will have to find somewhere new to live . The person I share with also has the advantage of being able to share while having the place to themselves most of the time! So far I have shared with a visiting academic couple and am currently sharing with a postgraduate student from Hong Kong. I will be sorry when she leaves - she is an excellent flatmate. People ask me why not share all the time? I have done a lot of this in the past and I find it is never entirely satisfactory. I much prefer living on my own and having quite a bit of space and the adventure of constant change.

I am able to manage juggling house sitting and my job fairly successfuly as I have flexible work arrangements and am able to work from home quite a bit. It probably wouldn't work if one had a job that required lengthy periods away from home every day. It does tend to put a bit of a spanner in the works of my social life however, particularly if there are pets as I have to go home to feed and walk the pets and if the house sit is a fair way from my friends and other activities it is not really practical to go out again in the evening. You certainly can't go away while you are looking after a house.

The pets can also be very time consuming. They often miss their owners and need to be carefully looked after and kept happy. I have as yet to mind a pet which hasn't woken me up or kept me awake at night at some point! It is also not very satisfactory when one finds that one is looking after a house and pets that one doesn't really enjoy. But one of the very positive things about house sitting is that you know you can eventually just leave and the problems are no longer your problems!

Having said all this - one never gets bored and it is endlessly fascinating living in new neighbourhoods, new houses and dealing with variously entertaining pets. I also find it extremely interesting being able to look at other people's solutions for living from the inside as it were. I have picked up quite a few practical ideas about how to do things from house sits! There are also some beautiful houses out there! House sitting also provides one with an endless source of entertaining anecdotes. It is, in addition to this, a good way of meeting new people and making new friends. It gives one a real sense of pleasure being able to help people out by looking after their house so they can have a worry free holiday or business trip.

To add to this, it is an excellent way of saving money on rent and utilities - but one can also run into unexpected expenses. For example, I locked a set of French windows in one house and then found there were no keys for the locks. This meant an expensive visit from a locksmith. And just as I was beginning another house sit which was only accessible by car, my car broke down and I had to hire a car for three days. If I had been living in the inner city I could have relied on public transport.

In short, it is an exciting and rewarding lifestyle but does require quite a bit of work and adjustment.

Home at last

2006-07-16T06:48:00.000+09:30

I moved out of the ghastly house sit yesterday, but not before the cat had thrown up all over the outside balcony yesterday morning -probably due to stress after having been attacked by the dog just before it ate. The day before yesterday, the dog peed on the downstairs tiles again - which I only discovered when I stepped in a wet puddle - fortunately wearing my thongs this time - after getting up in the morning and opening the blinds.

One of the neighbours, whom I discovered had done a year of house sitting himself in Darwin, took a somewhat dim view on the cat. The cat would turn on their motion sensor lights at night, kill all their lizards and they watched it kill a possum in their garden once. Indeed it appears that the cat killed a possum dragged it into its owners' house and dismembered the carcass all over the carpet. The owners have since removed the carpet and during my tenure it was polished floorboards upstairs and ancient lino in the kitchen and freezing cold tiles downstairs where the main bedroom was located.

The only good thing about this house sit was that it was near a major shopping mall (Indooroopilly Shopping Hell as one friend calls it) where I have attended many a film with a friend with similar tastes in film. So I took the opportunity to see Superman Returns in Gold Class (a ritzy first class cinema with reclining seats and waiter service) and Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest. If there was lots to think about in relation to the Superman film, the latter film was rather tedious and instantly forgettable.

I am back at home base now. I have probably mentioned before that I have been renting a three bedroom flat for many years and am now sharing it to help save on rent money. Sharing as an experience can wear thin pretty quickly (Nick Earls anyone?), so the only way I could solve this problem was by house sitting. My flatmate (my current flatmate is excellent) gets a good deal - the use of all my furniture and stuff and a flat to themselves most of the time. I keep a room locked up with my personal stuff (eg books, DVDs and clothes) and stay there for short periods between house sits.

I am now taking 6 weeks off after a year of continuous house sitting and I am really ready for a break! My flat unlike many of the house sits is conveniently situated near work, inner city on the river and low maintenance and it is good just to have my things around and not have to worry about losing them or having to pack them up. And no pets... heaven. Pets, even when they are nice, and I have looked after some lovely ones, are a lot of work and really tie you down.

Pet behaviourist extraordinaire

2006-07-12T15:01:00.000+09:30

3 more days to go and the fish is still alive...

One thing that they don't tell you when you embark on a career as a house sitter is that you need to become an overnight expert in animal behaviour problems. After much internet research, perusing articles such as 'What to do with a feather plucker" (parrots!) and viewing of TV programs such as "The Dog Listener", I feel I am now gaining a most respectable proficiency in this specialised domain.

Let's list some of the things I have had to do in my travels.
1. Calm a neurotic anxious squawking parrot with constant food and attention;
2. Regularly soothe a thunderphobic collie in the middle of the night and administer dog valium - which of course only kicked into gear once the storm was over.
3. Extract a ravenous (and already fed) cat licking plates and cutlery in a dishwasher after my back was turned for one minute, and also extract it from a bin and then prise the night before's lamb bone out of its jaws.
4. Cheer up a seriously depressed siamese fighting fish on hunger strike.
5. Train two dogs in different houses to walk on the lead.
6. Clean up the house and wash the quilts after the dog had used them as a toilet facility. When it rained he didn't like getting his paws wet in the garden so the house was *much* more inviting (of course!).
7. Work out why a budgie had started plucking its own feathers out and solve the problem.
8. Fix two faulty kreepy krauly pool filters using masking tape.
9. Coax a neurotic small dog to take its antihistamine tablet every morning by any means possible.
10. And to bring it up to a nice round 10 - put up with a frisky cat trying to strategically wake you at 5am every morning with the following sequence (a) miaowing determinedly in your face (b) walking all over you giving you a nice shiatsu massage (c) attempting to draw the covers back with its paw (d) walking onto the bedside table in an attempt turn the light on.

Non fighting fish

2006-07-04T15:40:00.000+09:30

11 more days to go...

I have managed to calm the dog right down so he is acting in a more or less reasonable manner now. The cat on the other hand is getting even more insistent on food. The fighting fish in the miniscule tank is looking decidedly sad and not rushing to eat its food. It was locked away in a bedroom where the cat couldn't eat it. I have brought it out into the kitchen to a bench inaccessible to the cat to see if I can cheer it up with a bit of stimulation. I am quite proud of myself - I managed to change the water in its tank last night without incident. I had to hunt around for an implement small enough to scoop the fish out of the tank while I cleaned and changed the water. Hopefully it will survive another 11 days.

Pet supernanny

2006-07-01T23:23:00.000+09:30

14 days left to go...

I feel like a pet supernanny. The pets are starting to calm down a bit but I had to lock the cat outside while I was eating my dinner last night after it made another half successful attempt on my food after I had rashly left it for two seconds on the kitchen bench. I've decided to call the cat 'Grizzly' as it acts like a grizzly bear does when around human food.

The dog is getting slightly more manageable. I spent a day at home yesterday and allowed it the run of the house and it had a bit of human company. I am following the 'dog listener's' advice and trying to ignore bad behaviour and reward good behaviour (eg dog being calm and quiet). Long walks are good as they tire the dog out. It is a lot calmer after it has had a walk. I saw the Dog Listener series on TV a few months ago and went out and bought the DVD yesterday.

Ravenous cat

2006-06-30T07:52:00.000+09:30

15 more days to go...

I made the mistake of leaving the kitchen for two minutes and came back to find the cat in the dishwasher. It was a bit of a job getting him out of there! Earlier that evening while eating dinner, I had the dog at my feet and the cat sitting on a chair next to me. It managed to push through my barricade at one point and actually clawed a lamb chop off my plate. I have never seen anything like it. I have had cats grab stuff off your plate after you have finished eating and when they think you are not looking, but not a cat that you had to struggle with while you were eating. Amazing! He is always jumping up on the kitchen bench as well. This cat is by no means thin either! I think it has been using the toilet mat I left down for the dog as well, so I might invest in a kitty tray and kitty litter today. It is left inside for long periods by the owners and I suspect from the state of the tiles that it has been using the floor as a kitty litter for some time.

The dog managed to keep me up for hours last night. I put it to bed outside and then at 10pm it just started jumping up and banging on the glass doors. I eventually let it in and it kept running around and darting just out of reach. I got it out again and it woke me at 2am. It's banging on the door now but I am not going to let it in until it has had some time to go the loo.

15 more days to go...

A tired dog is a good dog

2006-06-29T14:51:00.000+09:30

16 more days to go...

I read on a dog behaviour site last night that 'a tired dog is a good dog'. I had certainly noticed this after taking Kevi for two huge walks the last couple of days. I am only letting him into the house for a limited period of time some time after his evening meal and only under strict supervision. He actually sat quietly at my feet for all of 5 minutes last night. I am convinced that both pets have ADHD. Preparing and eating my own dinner causes a great deal of pet frenzy and I have a hard job keeping both pets away from my food. The dog sits quietly enough out in the courtyard when there are no humans around but as soon as he sees me, any other human or is let into the house he goes absolutely beserk. He also does an annoying thing of darting just out of reach when you want him to do something (eg go outside). I find if I walk away from him and don't pay any attention to him he will follow - mostly -.

The cat loves jumping up on the kitchen bench (yuk) when he thinks I am not looking to see if I have left any interesting cooking scraps behind. He knows it's a bad thing to do as will jump down when I tell him to. I had to prise him off the bed today before I went out - it was cold and rainy outside and he doesn't really have anywhere proper to sit outside in this kind of weather. I might set up a laundry basket with the quilt he usually sits on on the balcony where his food is -so he can feel comfortable. He can't share the area with the dog as the dog seems to attack him all the time. I had to separate them a few times last night. The dog does this as soon as he thinks I have paid any attention at all to the cat. I have noticed this pattern with all the dog cat households I have looked after so far.

Instead of smelling dank and musty when I got home last night - the house smelt of the bleach (exit mould) that I had applied to the shower.

Country views

2006-06-28T11:04:00.000+09:30

Well to counteract current grottiness, I really feel I need to write about the lovely house sits I have just done. The photo on the left is one of the views from the first one.

The first house was on top a hill with a view of other hills, cows and the country - all a mere 35 minutes drive from central Brisbane. The house was an old queenslander style house of the very best sort which had been transported from inner city Brisbane and then redoubled in size. It was surrounded by huge 8 foot verandahs and featured 12 foot high ceilings. There were four very large bedrooms with carved wooden vents at the top of each door. Each bedroom was decorated differently with beautiful embroidered and woven silk bed and cushion covers brought home from India and tasteful curtains. I was staying in a bedroom with magnificent bay windows facing onto the verandah with a jasmine vine growing tastefully over the verandah rails. If the house was old the kitchen and bathroom were new and top of the range and the whole house had been renovated with care. There were two sitting rooms no less. All the fittings were very nice too - brass light switches and dimmers, good appliances in the kitchen. The walls were covered with fine pieces of contemporary art which I really enjoyed. There was also a CD collection of music very much to my own taste.

Beautiful dark and quiet at night - no traffic noise and uninterrupted country views. A long dirt driveway up to the house. There was also a pool out the back and a sprinkler system running from the water tanks to keep the garden around the house watered.

Lovely pets. A tankful of 5 small burrowing lizards who didn't require any maintenance or feeding. The owner had given them a supply of live crickets before leaving. The dog - a border collie cross called Flower - a good natured independent dog who just loved visitors. The more people who were in the house the happier she was. The cat was magnificent - a gold dusted Bengal cat called Merlot whose fur literally shone in the sun. I will be writing a separate entry on the cats I have looked after soon and there are a few tales to tell about him!

This was very much my sort of house. The only drawback was that it was rather far from central Brisbane and my friends and usual activities - but for relaxing breaks away from it all - a fabulous place and much admired by the friends I invited over.

I will also write separately on the house sit that immediately followed this one in the same area.

Worse than the parrot?

2006-06-28T10:29:00.000+09:30

17 more days to go...

About the only good thing you can say about the dog, Kevi, is that he looks cute. If you look at the dog dumpage stats listed by Burke's Back yard in 2004, the Maltese and the Shihtzu feature up there as the two must dumped dogs in Australia. And I can see why - Kevi is a combination of the two. He does more-or-less every single thing you wouldn't want a dog to do. He was trying to bite my feet this morning and has wrapped his mouth a couple of times around my arm so I could feel his teeth - 'play' biting. He poos and wees wherever it wants, including anywhere he likes in the house and all over the back patio. He barks his head off if you don't keep his citronella barking collar on and is an absolute pain to take for a walk - pulling frantically on the lead and weaving all over the place. He also jumps up on visitors and has to be coaxed to eat his food. He also kept me up till 1.30am the night before last making a racket by jumping against the outside door and whining. He gnaws continually at his paws - a sign of obsessive anxiety which I have seen before notably in the staffie I looked after last year.

I took him out for a long walk yesterday and tired him out so that he behaved much better in the evening. I have banned him from the house since he peed on a bed the night before last. I had to wash the quilt and cover - fortunately it hadn't leaked through to the mattress. I went to a pet store yesterday and asked for advice and bought some mats to see if I could train the dog to be more precise in his toilet habits - but so far no joy. I don't think the dog is trainable - or at the very least an immense amount of time and effort would have to go into it. I wonder whether he has received any training at all. He doesn't respond to sit commands either.

There is something repulsive about the cat as well - which I haven't quite worked out. It reminds me of a giant slug. It is only friendly when it wants food. The dog doesn't treat it very nicely either to add to the dog's defects. For such a large cat it has the most reedy and pathetic of miaows - it's like seeing a huge tough bikie all in leathers with a camp falsetto voice.

The dog is the worst pet I have looked after. Even the parrot was entertaining in its neuroses and provided many people with a good laugh. I have been applying exit mould to the shower and have now installed my own dishrack and electric jug which makes me feel a bit more at home.

To counteract all of this I need to write soon about the two fantastic house sits that I have just done at Camp Mountain - both with lovely pets and both beautiful houses.

Exit mould

2006-06-26T15:12:00.000+09:30

A stinky musty dark house, mouldy dripping showers, large cockroaches - not a good start to my latest house sit. To add to this, security conscious house sitter that I am, I bolted a French window only to find there was no key. Opening these French windows is essential as the cat's bowl is kept out on the verandah/balcony and airing the house is an absolute priority! After this disaster I tried the ensuite shower which the owners had invited me to use but the shower head was so dreadful, spraying thin needles of water in every direction and the whole tiled experience was so dark and mouldy that I retired post haste to the upstairs shower. Somewhat less mouldy - but still in need of serious exit mould treatment... Later at 1.30am I was sure I could hear dripping - yes it was indeed the shower dripping, chinese torture style in the bathroom upstairs directly over my room. I dealt with that after I had tracked down the source of the rustling noises in the next room - one or two large cockroaches rustling amongst the papers. I promptly took all my luggage off the floor, closed it and put it on tables and chairs.

This morning, I got up and fed the ravenous animals and then getting a new and as yet unworn pair of superwarm socks out of my suitcase, I stepped right into a dog puddle as soon as my socked foot hit the floor. Upstairs a strong smell of dog poo assailed my nose in the sitting room and sure enough... I carry a small box of supertough latex gloves for such incidents. (They got used last week to clear up a cat diarrhea situation in the laundry of the last house sit.) The owners had informed me that their little white maltese shitzu cross hates getting its delicate paws wet when it rains, so on such occasion avails itself of the house as a toilet facility. Trust my luck to move in after a few days of rain after months of drought. The solution, they said, is to lock it out - not easy when it scrabbles pathetically against the glass doors that lead from the back patio to the kitchen. It also wears a citronella barking collar. I experimented with taking the barking collar off - then put it back on after I had dealt with the dripping shower last night to the sound of frenzied barking. The owners lock it into a dog crate outside at night - I think becasue of possums or something - but I left it out last night and I will see how it goes just sitting on its blanket beside the crate.

The cat is huge and quite strong. I heard a loud crash from the kitchen this morning - it was no small thing separating the cat from the lamb bone he had scrabbled out of the garbage after knocking the entire bin over! He fixates on anything you do in the kitchen with a baleful intensity worthy of any dog - sitting at your feet doing some impressive neck exercises staring up at the bench and occasionally stretching up on his hind legs so his claws grab onto the top drawer.

There's a fish too - a thai fighting fish in a very small tank, shut firmly in the teenage daughter's bedroom where the cat can't eat it. The parents were noticeably less than enthusiastic about this pet and unimpressed by their daughter's ardent protestations that it was beautiful.

The locksmith came this morning and fixed the lock at great expense. I will have to collect a dishrack and electric kettle from home. There is a dishrack in place but it is covered with mildew (it's wooden). There is also a very ancient electric kettle with a geological layer of sediment down the bottom which turns up in one's teacup as well. It's none too clean on the outside either. The hotplates only work on high and the drip trays under the rings have clearly been there since the aluminium smelting process was first developed - and then there is the rusty microwave. I introduced my new blender to this kitchen this morning. I am very proud of my new Breville blender replacing a truly antique black and decker food processor that I purchased in the early 90s.

The house looks okay from the outside and is sort of okay on superficial perusal and visitation - but it is a very thin veneer... Even the pool is in dingy disarray. The bottom is covered with leaves as the owners have given up and willingly admit to having done so. There is a kreepy krawly pipe but the head has been removed. The pool is clean and chlorinated -apart from all the dead leaves down the bottom.

Three weeks is going to be a long time...

Pet accessories

2006-05-26T16:46:00.000+09:30

It's been a while since I made an entry here. In the meantime I have done two more house sits and am on to my third. The first was at Westlake, then I am now at Camp Mountain where by a weird coincidence I have had two consecutive house sits within a kilometre of each other. I have just started the second one. The two at Camp Mountain are really top notch house sits. More of that later...

In this entry I simply wished to draw attention to two items in my growing collection of pet accessories. One principle I have adhered to whilst house sitting is that one has to do it with maximum style. It is taking a while of course to get the style going. The first item that had to be taken care of was my luggage. I started out with old filing boxes but now have rather nice bags - all bought at reduced rates of course! One has to walk the dog in style. I was finding the plastic bag and calico shoulder bag a bit tacky so bought the pictured items. A nice ostrich feather evening bag to carry my house keys, a tissue and the 'bags on board' dog poo bag dispenser.

Birdie num num

2006-03-16T16:06:00.000+09:30

I noticed that the budgie seed was getting a bit low and was showing signs of not lasting until the owners' return. So knowing that such an intolerant budgie would make trouble if I dared change anything, I emailed the owners to ask what brand of budgie seed it liked. Sure enough the owners emailed back saying that one day they had bought a packet of seed of a different brand. The budgie promptly went on a hunger strike which it continued until it was delirious with starvation. Presumably at that point after trying to work out what on earth was wrong, the harrassed owners bought an emergency packet of the correct brand of budgie food.

fewer ruffled feathers

2006-03-13T15:01:00.000+09:30

I decided I would try the tactic of just leaving the budgie alone and not offering her the possibility of bold sallies forth from her cage and that seems to have worked. She is quite happy to be intensely irritable on her own in her cage without pecking her feathers out any more. I have discovered that if I offer the end of my terry towelling dressing gown belt through the bars, she will launch into a pecking frenzy. If she's frightened of something she tries to get as far away as possible from it - so she's clearly not frightened of my finger or the terry towelling which is in a soothing light blue colour. She does like pecking them however. I don't know what that means!

There's an excellent page titled "What to do with a feather plucker" It includes such test questions as this: "Has the furniture in the bird room been rearranged? This changes the bird's landmarks and disorients it. Our lovebirds go into fits of loud squawking whenever we make the slightest change in the furniture arrangement in their room." This caused some hilarity when I mentioned it to my colleagues at work. A case of your parrots terrorising the whole household! The love bird I am looking after is certainly very strident in its squawks but usually only when nobody is looking at it. If somebody goes out onto the deck where its cage sits - it usually rushes into the little house down the bottom of its cage. I had to wait quite a while quietly for it to come out so I could get the above photo. One day its leg got caught in the twigs at the bottom of its cage while going into its house and it practically pecked its own leg off trying to disengage it so it could get out of view.

Psycho budgie

2006-03-07T17:36:00.000+09:30

You will notice in this photo that the budgie is staring very aggressively at her own reflection in the mirror. The budgie is in fact a severe worry - it has been pecking out its feathers the last couple of days as well as continuing to peck at me. I managed to get it to sit on my finger and come out of its cage again after much effort and time and got severely pecked for my pains. It even walked up my arm to peck my neck! I had been told that its wings were clipped but they have clearly grown back as was evidenced when it took flight around the room. Getting it back in its cage was no laughing matter! But hopefully after a bit of a change and some wing exercise it is now feeling slightly less irritable. I bought it a toy on the recommendation of an budgie owning assistant in a pet shop to try and cheer it up but it is scared stiff of it so I have had to remove it from its sight.

I have come to the conclusion that birds are an absolute nightmare to look after - dogs and cats are easy! The problem is, I think, that birds just should not be kept in tiny cages all on their own. They seem to go a bit psycho in solitary confinement! Several birds in a large cage or aviary would be much easier to look after I think!

The birds

2006-03-06T23:19:00.000+09:30

Just a few notes really so I don't forget!

I managed to coax the budgie out of its cage yesterday at my current house sit instead of it just pecking at me. It seemed to settle down a bit out of the cage and clearly enjoyed parading around the house on my shoulder (a very small long john silver parrot). It still needs cheering up - I will continue to work on it. It pecked me frantically when I decided to put it back in its cage. In fact it threw a full sized budgie tantrum, before resigning itself to its fate. No wonder, poor thing, I was returning it to solitary confinement once again. The other bird decided to come out of its little house while I was around as well yesterday and made some very determined efforts with a twig in its beak to try and poke the budgie in the adjacent cage.

Pet central again

2006-02-25T22:35:00.000+09:30

A lightning entry this time. I am currently looking after an old Queenslander in Coorparoo with a black labrador, a lovebird and a white budgie who tries to peck you any time you go anywhere near its cage. The black labrador, Fred, greets me every time I come home with the most excessive enthusiasm. He also seems to find my car deeply and profoundly exciting and fascinating. Every bowl of food is the most exciting thing that has happened to him in his whole life as is the prospect of going for a walk. I had no idea that labradors could jump so high - I thought that was Jack Russell territory!

The house also has a swimming pool. It was very hot the first week I moved in but unfortunately I was far too busy to take advantage of its inviting blue depths. Now it has got cooler I suppose I will have to wait until next summer and hope that the house sits will bring a crop of pools at the right time of year.

Hungarian pulis

2006-02-10T07:41:00.000+09:30

Last December while searching for an art restoration expert to deal with the wedding photo I mentioned earlier in this blog, and not finding the shop at the address it was listed in my admittedly old yellow pages, I thought I would try a nearby gallery. I wondered why a big black rug was rolled up untidily and pressed against the glass entrance door. A man opened the door and the rug got up and walked away. I was surprised to say the least. It was actually a dog. On interrogating the gallery owner, I discovered it was a hungarian puli and that the dreadlocks were in fact natural. It also sported coloured ribbons on the top of its head which were decidedly unnatural.

After leaving the gallery I simply could not stop thinking about this rastafarian rug dog. I did some searches on the net and found two flourishing puli websites, one in Sydney called Rustufarion Hungarian pulis and another based in Denmark called Bubbleton puli which is where the photo here comes from. It was clear that I had to house sit this dog.

Yesterday I visited the gallery again. As I came in the door, the rug raced into the shop from out the back and wagging its rear end, licked my leg with great enthusiasm and then lay down on the floor waiting to be vacuumed. The gallery owner was on the phone, so I patted the dog while I waited for her. I explained I was a house sitter and that I was absolutely fascinated by her amazing dog. In the meantime the dog lay on its side and then on its back with its legs in the air waiting to have its tummy rubbed. Its eyes were the same colour as its coat which made them hard to see even when all the dreadlocks were out of the way. Great looks and friendly playful personality - promising! I had a bit of a chat with the gallery owner about where she lived and her art which was displayed in the gallery. I left my card. I am hoping that one day she might call while she is away exhibiting overseas.

Housesit rejects

2006-02-09T06:38:00.000+09:30

I haven't mentioned so far any of the house sits I have turned down, apart from the one with the 30 parrots! There are 3 categories of places I turn down - first of all, there are those which I turn down because the dates are not right, they are too far away, there are too many pets or there is otherwise too much work to do - or it involves childcare (!). One of these rejects was right down down on the bay, had a dog and a cat and - 'oh and by the way there is a cow who needs half a bale of hay a day'. This was mentioned as a mere afterthought by the owners in a phone conversation. Another owner wanted me to housesit her 'two leggered pets' - namely an 11 year old boy and a 18 year old girl. I ran like the wind from that one!

The second category of rejects concerns where I think the house might be a possibility, say a tentative yes and with address in hand go and view the outside of the house and the neighbourhood. Again I have turned these down if the house doesn't look very interesting, if it is on a main road or in an otherwise somewhat depressing or remote suburban neighbourhood.

It is only rarely that I reject a place once I have got to the third stage, namely actually visiting and being interviewed by the home owner. My most recent rejection of this kind was was a modified old Queenslander with a dog and a garden. The dog (who was quite nice, friendly and small, but not a particularly interesting Australian silkie terrier cross) needed no less than two walks a day. The owners also mentioned some neighbours who liked on occasions taking him for walks 'for hours and hours' on weekends. I started to feel an overwhelming need to lie down at this point of the conversation.

There were 3 fishponds with no filters or fountains which needed regular topping up with treated water and dozens and dozens of hanging plants in addition to a huge garden which also included a very impressive extension onto the nature strip on two streets, the house being on a corner. With water restrictions in full force I could see endless hours of labour stretching ahead in a bleak vista.

The house was right across the road from the railway line and the owners mentioned that they would often miss crucial plot points watching television dramas as trains thundered past. There was also the 3am freight train every night. The hoons who appeared regularly on the road were also mentioned, as was the barking dog next door and the owners had a somewhat animated conversation amongst themselves as to whether somebody had been trying to break into their car for the last five nights, given the lights kept coming on on the car at night - and only at night not during the day.

The woman also had much to say at great length about the previous house sitters who hadn't returned the saucepans and towels to their right positions in the cupboards and even hinted that I could perhaps wash the windows of the house before their return. She had a massive folder full of typed instructions which she offered to lend me to take away and peruse at my leisure. To add to all of this, the upstairs bathroom only had a spa bath (an unexpected luxury in an otherwise old house) which meant only the downstairs shower - which they used - was in commission. As the house was basically an old Queenslander on stilts with the downstairs section added in later, one had to go outside the house and down the stairs and under the house to get to it . As if this was not enough, the toilet didn't work properly without coaxing. It would of course have meant getting dressed before and after having a shower, so as not to parade around in my pyjamas for all the street to see.

Then at the end of the interview they started discussing by what method I should pay the bills. This included the water rates. - effectively I would be paying for the water which I would use to keep their absolutely massive garden alive, in addition to the electricity and phone line rental accounts. In the final analysis what the owners of this seven week sit really wanted was a slave.

By the end of the interview - I was exhausted - and that was just the interview! I found myself thinking about plants and water restrictions with dread a few days later, then remembered that I had actually turned this housesit down! Clearly the trauma had been etched into my memory from just that one short encounter with the house!

The non interference rule

2006-01-29T06:10:00.000+09:30

One thing I have been learning as I do more house sits is that it is fatal to interfere with the household status quo - no matter how good or noble your intentions. Let me provide a string of examples.

In one house I was less than happy with the state of the dogs rather disgusting bedding, so I thought I would wash it and make it all nice - less really for the dogs than for me. The results were disastrous. The washing machine broke down and I had to call in the repairman at a cost of $99 and one of the dogs wouldn't sleep in his bed for the next two weeks. She eventually reconciled herself to the new smell before the owners returned fortunately!

A second example - I decided I would get cleaners into another house to minimise the exhausting process of cleaning and moving out. Because I had enjoyed the house sit, I thought I would help out the owners and I got them to clean stuff I hadn't used and they somehow managed to scratch some of the pristine new surfaces. They also raised some venetian blinds I hadn't touched and I had quite a struggle getting them back into their original positions. In addition to this, they moved some outside deck furniture and I was unable to return the table to a stable position where it didn't rock. One thing is for sure I won't be recommending those particular cleaners to anybody else!

And yet another example - I opened a window which was clearly rarely opened and a prized wedding photo blew off the shelf. The frame chipped and what I thought were scratches became apparent. The problem was I had no way of knowing whether the frame had already been chipped before it blew off the shelf. Consultation with an art restoration expert revealed that what I thought had been scratches on the photo were in fact insect trails. To tell the truth after being lovingly restored for a cost of $45 the photo probably looked better after my stay than it had before I arrived!

Last week while whiling away the time in the motel after my radiator blew up, I surfed onto a mildly entertaining but often cringeworthy movie titled My Boss's Daughter (2003) where a hapless young man agrees to housesit for his boss. He not only discovers that he is landed with a difficult pet but a number of people come around and completely trash the house in spite of his best efforts. Clearly the writers had either done some house sitting themselves or knew somebody who had. Less realistically, however, all turns out roses in the end with a minimum of expense and effort. Incidentally the director of the film is David Zucker who co-directed my favourite comedy film Flying High (1980). One can only wonder what has happened to his talents en route after seeing this more recent offering.

But the film does make the point that people coming around to a housesit are a problem and even more likely than the house sitter to break the rule of non-interference. One of my visitors to one housesit aimed a kick at one of the dogs because of the dog's overly enthusiastic and doggy welcome. Other visitors at another housesit decided to pick up and examine the objets d'art. I immediately went into a panic over fingermarks and the objects' not being returned to the precise spots from which they had been removed.

After these various contretemps, I have to constantly remind myself to curtail any temptations to 'improve' conditions in my house sits or make it 'nicer' for the owners. What I think personally is nice and helpful more often than not simply lead to problems, expense and an anxious housesitter!

High rise house sitting.

2006-01-27T16:25:00.000+09:30

Yesterday I moved into an inner city housesit. This is my first apartment house sit. I am on the 6th floor with a fabulous view in a thriving inner city area with lots of cafes and handy shops. It is good to be back in the convenient inner city and so close to work. And no pets again. The venetian blinds are a bit of a struggle however. They don't roll up properly and they flap around and get out of shape if the windows are open. I think a nice set of curtains would work better.

I have been on a three week trip to Sydney and Melbourne and back. I drove and on the way down the battery light came on which necessitated a new alternator in Taree - where I spent three hours examining every shop in town. On the way back in the unbelievably hot weather (in the high 40s) my radiator cracked right across the top in Nerrandera near Wagga Wagga in NSW. Fortunately I just happened to be driving past a petrol station in a town when all the rusty water exploded over my windscreen. A very lucky placement of breakdown. The NRMA depot was just down the road from the staion as well. Everybody was very helpful I must say! Fortunately for me I managed not to crack the gasket as I stopped the car immediately and although the temperature guage had been slightly elevated beforehand it was not in the red and there was still water left in my radiator reservoir. I am very lucky in my breakdowns generally. Perhaps I should start another blog on my breakdowns while driving across eastern Australia. My last car had quite a few interesting ones...

Rhizomatic ramblings

2006-01-04T21:32:00.000+09:30

Sorry to say, my days at this ritzy abode are numbered. The owners are returning on Sunday - worst luck for me. There have been some absolutely huge thunderstorms while I have been here. The most spectacular was on Christmas day in the afternoon - after temperatures which were in the 40s (centigrade not fahrenheit!). As this house is on a hill - you get a fantastic view of enormous bolts of lightning and horizontal rain. When the thunder roars the whole house, which is made out of wood, vibrates. You can feel it particularly if you are lying in bed. The huge thunderstorm last night started at around 10.30 pm and went until midnight. A milder storm tonight but almost as much rain.

It is still drought stricken in Queensland. We are on level 2 water restrictions which make it somewhat difficult to water the garden - only every second day before 7am and after 7 pm if you want to use a hose. There have been sufficient thunderstorms up until 10 days ago to keep the garden well and truly watered without my intervention. Then it dried up - but fortunately we are back to storms again. I had to do a spot of weeding on the fairly minimalist garden. The 'lawn' which is actually just feral grass and weeds is raging out of control. Some gardening guys have come around twice, but all they did was whipper snip some of the highest grass and leave all the rest. In the two weeks since they came it has all got well and truly out of control. There is one bit which is simply weeds. Some very tall weeds grew with the rain but then died with the 10 days of high 30s temperatures and dryness.

Anyway I am just rambling on at present in a rhizomic way - so I might stop and put any potential readers out of their misery.

Views and minimalism

2005-12-09T11:27:00.000+09:30

I am now in a truly fabulous house on the outskirts of Brisbane. I can safely say this is my favourite house so far. It is a wooden house and was designed for the owners to their specifications by an architect and is a monument to light, space and minimalism with spectacular views. I have decided that I am not going to let the owners have this house back. It is now mine. It is wonderfully restful and also has broadband internet which I have been able to plug my new second hand Macintosh cube into and work very early and very late - and then do nothing the rest of the day (I wish!). Some very restful television viewing has also occurred.

On the pet front - there is a cat from next door whom the owners feed. I let it in when I heard it miaowing outside the front door. It came in and I stroked it until it suddenly realised with horror that I was a complete stranger. It then ran away to one of the bedrooms in search of the owners. It peered out cautiously after a while to see if I was still there and then ran out of the house when it thought I wasn't looking. After a few more attempts - it seems to have realised the owners are not there and I haven't seen it in the last few days.

The bush at the front of the house seems to have a serious infestation of scale and some of the pot plants on the front deck are showing similar signs. Off to the garden shop to search for remedies.

I haven't had to water the very minimalist and neatly organised garden since being in residence due to a number of huge tropical thunderstorms and torrential downpours. The plants on the deck have needed some water - but really it is not a big effort. It has also been very hot but although the house has no airconditioning - it doesn't become absolutely unbearable and doesn't retain the heat at night. But I will admit that I have spent the last few days in at work in the airconditioning however.

The kitchen is very nicely designed with a kind of central island with a sink and bench space as well as bench space next to the cook top and oven. It has already played host to a lunch and a dinner party. There are some good local shops with a cafe which does excellent all day breakfast and fish and chips - both of which are widely appreciated by the locals.

I will be here over Christmas - and it is definitely a place I am very happy to be over the festive season.

The graveyard

2005-11-17T07:57:00.000+09:30

I've got a bit behind with my updates. Work annoyingly gets in the way of more worthwhile pursuits! I am looking after a West Highland White Terrier (westie) and a Border Collie at present. They are very attractive and well socialised dogs and fun to be around. The collie suffers from thunderphobia however which is a problem considering it is November storm season in Brisbane! The westie doesn't bat an eyelid however and when I was up at 3am the night before last trying to stop the collie from barking, he thought it was most entertaining and was friskily ready to play.

I take them for walks every day in a nearby cemetary which seems to be a kind of defacto off the leash area for dog owners and a short cut for university students who have just got off the ferry. But even so it is not unduly populated with the living and it is an enjoyable quiet walk examining the gravestones. The earliest gravestones date back to 1888 with any earlier corpses having been previously interred at Milton. Whole life stories are engraved on the stones. There is 9 year old Tommy who was killed on his way home from school in 1938. There are still flowers on that grave which is an imposing granite affair with gold lettering and an urn for flowers. Teenage daughters lie there. Wives and husbands separated by death for 50 years finally rest together.

The cemetary is also full of blood sucking mosquitos - maybe this is how the vampire emerged in the literary imagination. One can envisage Bram Stoker wandering gloomily through graveyards and after suffering the assaults of the insect population thinking - now there's an idea! But then, on the other hand, Ireland is not exactly known for its swarms of tropical mosquitos.

Partially perished parrot

2005-10-28T11:22:00.000+09:30

I put this short piece together for the Mind My House website.

It was with some trepidation that I accepted a house sit with two dogs, a parrot, a fishpond and a burglar alarm. I had never had anything to do with dogs before, aside from viewing them suspiciously from a respectable distance and now I was going to be looking after, not just one, but two dogs – taking them for walks, patting and feeding them, the whole deal. Buckbeak, the princess parrot was going to be the least of my worries I thought happy in my blind delusion.

After a week of quiet polite existence in her cage, Buckbeak finally felt it was time to make her existence widely known. Both she and the dogs considered it was absolutely essential that I should rise at 6 am every morning. One of the dogs would start barking at 6.15 if I was not out of bed and Buckbeak would squawk her agreement long and loudly. I could hear her down the street as I blearily stumbled after the dogs as they took me for their morning walk.

So how does one deal with a stroppy squawking parrot? Step one: ply her with food - sunflower seeds, strawberries, bananas, passionfruit, apple, carrot, lettuce - you name it! But it wasn't just food she wanted. Step two: stroke her beak. She loved having her beak stroked and was quite prepared to let me do that for hours - if only I had the hours! She also liked me blowing on her and having her feathers stroked - but the beak was her favourite. Step three: it was necessary that I be near her cage at all times so that she could inspect me with interest and for her own amusement. Serious squawking ensued if I disappeared from view, forcing me to heave the cage along with me as I migrated from room to room. This was one seriously bored parrot.

My friends callously had no sympathy for my plight and amused themselves endlessly with questions as to whether she was (or ought to be) nailed to the perch or suggestions that she was perhaps pining for the fjords. The truth was she was most definitely pining for her owners, in particular George, who when he was home would let her out of her cage every night to fly around the house and à la long John Silver would let her parade around on his shoulder and nibble on his ear. George's wife was disgusted by the whole exhibition: 'The parrot's in love with you George!' Get over it Buckbeak!' No flying and no George – no wonder the poor parrot was pining. The day before the owners returned the bird was looking decidedly ill and tossed most of the food offerings capriciously to the bottom of her cage and wanted endless stroking. But the next day she was back to smooth feathers and her strident opinionated self.

A few days after leaving (leaving is one of the definite benefits of house sitting) I learned that she had had a stroke. The poor bird had crashed a couple of times on its nightly fly around the house outside its cage and had fallen over while attempting to walk on smooth surfaces. The owners had then urgently sought out bird specialists in Brisbane only to find that every single one had hived off to a bird vets conference in Canberra. The non-specialist vet, however, discerned all the symptoms of a stroke. Happily, apart from her flying and smooth surface ambulatory incapacities, Buckbeak still reigns stroppily from the perch in her cage - accepting all and sundry offerings of food and not hesitating in characteristic style to peck the hand that feeds her. Upon informing various people of this calamity, they merely redoubled their badly stifled laughter, proffering a heartless stream of jokes about parrot sized zimmer frames, CT scans and orthopedic parrot shoes.

Not long after, the automatic email list of the Australian House Sitters Directory sent me an advertisement that included the following information: "Plenty of animals such as, 2 dogs, 1 cat, 30 parrots, 1 guinea pig." Now the number of home owners (and there are hundreds) who advertise with this directory who have actually rung to offer me house sits can be counted on three fingers. But the owner of the 30 parrots rang. As friends pointed out - I was clearly channeling parrots - it was quite obvious that I had established a cosmic parrot connection.

30 parrots - the owner let me know that she didn't like loud shrieking parrots and had researched the internet to find quiet species of parrots and had then gone out and bought said varieties. I was almost tempted to accept this house sit just so I could actually meet these quiet parrots. Perhaps she had simply invested in 30 parrot shrieking collars after discovering the empirical unreliability of her sources.

Back to familiar haunts

2005-10-23T10:18:00.000+09:30

A bit of a break from the blog for a while! I left the bayside house sit and returned for 10 days to my home base - a three bedroom flat where I store my stuff in one of the rooms and share the rent with a couple visiting for a year from overseas. For five of those days I was down in Sydney visiting my family.

I was in the end glad to leave the bayside sit. The night before I left there was an incident of domestic violence next door and across the road a large teenage party replete with loud swearing in the street. Behind the pristine suburban facade lurks a wilderness of boredom, teenage angst, frustration and violence. To drown all this out I put on my DVD of The Prophecy and enjoyed the huge screen and the superb sub woofer sound. But the end result was that I only got 4 hours sleep as I had to get up at 5. 30 am the next day to finish cleaning and packing - which I embarrassingly hadn't quite completed when the owners returned. The owners who were very nice didn't seem to mind and proudly displayed their new additions to their Egyptian collection - assorted model scarabs and sphinxes and showed me a brief video of the inside of the pyramid hotel in Las Vegas where they had been staying.

In spite of the four hours sleep it was a perfect day - my birthday - beautiful weather, an unplanned morning tea and then lunch in a Korean restaurant with a friend, going on to meet some other friends to see a most entertaining film Serenity in the afternoon. Lengthy phone calls from friends, brothers and mother, takeaway dinner and wine with my flat mates. In short, the best birthday I have had for years.

I am now in a new house on the periphery on my old stamping grounds in Brisbane - not too far from my home storage base. It's a lovely old queenslander which comes complete with two dogs - a border collie and a west highland white terrier (westie). These are by far the best pets I have looked after so far - but perhaps I had better not speak to soon!! They are used to lots of different people and don't pester me endlessly, but instead do their own thing and are very accommodating. Rather than sulking for not being let out of the garage at some ungodly hour in the morning - they were simply pleased to see me at the reasonable hour of 7.30 am this (Sunday) morning and were in fact asleep themselves. These are clearly civilised dogs. They are very friendly without being overwhelming and didn't monster a friend who came around to visit unlike all the other pets I have minded so far. I have never seen food eaten so fast! Now I know where the expression 'wolf down your food' comes from!

An almost deceased parrot

2005-10-10T17:56:00.000+09:30

A few days after leaving the riverside house sit I learned that Buckbeak the parrot had had a stroke. The poor bird had crashed a couple of times on its nightly fly around the house outside its cage and had fallen over while attempting to walk on smooth surfaces. The owners had then urgently sought out bird specialists in Brisbane only to find that every single one had hived off to a bird vets conference in Canberra. But the non specialist vet discerned all the symptoms of a stroke. Happily, apart from her flying and smooth surface ambulatory incapacities, Buckbeak still reigns stroppily from the perch in her cage - accepting all and sundry offerings of food and not hesitating in characteristic style to peck the hand that feeds her .

Upon informing various people of this calamity, much badly stifled laughter ensued, accompanied by an endless stream of jokes about parrot sized zimmer frames, CT scans and orthopedic parrot shoes .

Not long after, the automatic email list of the Australian House Sitters Directory sent me an advertisement that included the following information: "Plenty of animals such as, 2 dogs, 1 cat, 30 parrots, 1 guinea pig." Now the number of home owners (and there are hundreds) who advertise with this directory who have actually rung to offer me house sits can be counted on three fingers. But the owner of the 30 parrots rang. As friends pointed out - I was clearly channelling parrots - it was quite obvious that I had established a cosmic parrot connection.

30 parrots - the owner let me know that she didn't like loud shrieking parrots and had researched the internet to find quiet species of parrots and had then gone out and bought said varieties. I must say that I am burning with curiosity to meet these quiet parrots. Perhaps she invested in 30 parrot shrieking collars after discovering the empirical unreliability of her sources.

Priceless art work

2005-10-06T15:58:00.000+09:30

After marking a pile of particularly tedious first year essays, in order to steel myself for another batch I resorted to a headstand against the wall in a desperate bid to revive my befuddled brain. Big mistake! I had failed to notice the priceless work of African art hanging on said wall and the whole thing came down and fell apart in a mess of cheap glue and shoddy workmanship. Television ads for the yellow pages immediately springing to mind, well trained consumer that I am, I located a frame shop poste haste.

On actually presenting them with the item in hand, however, they took some convincing to take on such a fiddly repair job. Why not do it yourself? suggested the shop owner. All you need is some araldite, tacks, paint, brush, clamps and... Well, replied I - this is precisely why I wanted somebody else to repair it! I told him there was another one - exactly the same on another wall (see picture) - whereupon he urged me to stay away from it at all costs. I assured him that he was preaching to the converted...

Suburban outrage

2005-10-04T11:49:00.000+09:30

I was awoken this morning at 6.59 precisely by the dulcet tones of somebody practising a decidedly shaky ‘Summertime’ on the trumpet. No problem – my alarm was set for 7 am in any case. On Sunday, I had made the mistake of forgetting to set my alarm and awoke – shock, horror – late, at the advanced hour of 8.10. After that unforgivable lapse, the dogs sulked all day after I had let them out of the laundry where they sleep at night.

I looked out the door of the front balcony over a fog-shrouded scene. An early morning spring fog had come in from the sea. But my enjoyment of this unusual weather was cut abruptly short by the sight of the bulging yellow-lidded recycling bin in the driveway. Some cur had topped up my recycling bin to overflowing, placed it smack in the middle of my driveway with - what was more - the wheels facing the wrong way. Outrage! I went out to rectify this situation and found it crammed full of pizza boxes and beer bottles.

My immediate suspicions were focused on my decidedly flaky neighbours whom the owners had warned me about before their departure. They have indeed been somewhat noisy and argumentative during my stay and one of them kept me awake coughing for hours in the early hours of the morning last night – a condition brought on, no doubt, by the late night consumption of the items that now cluttered my wheelie bin.

The houses in this street are jammed so close together that when another neighbour across the road decided for reasons best known to himself to vacuum his car in his (open) garage at 11.30 pm on Sunday night – this was truly an exercise designed for neighbourhood participation.

Relaxation at last!

2005-09-29T10:32:00.000+09:30

My current house is definitely the most relaxing and stress free house sit to date - even with the two terriers. I definitely enjoy white minimalist uncluttered modern spaces. The dogs have eased up on the frenzied barking and don't mind if I go out all day and actually get some work done! The only draw back really is that it is a 40 minute to an hour drive into work (depending on traffic). I have to give one of the dogs an anti-histamine pill for allergies every morning. The owners explained that I needed to put it in his mouth and hold his mouth shut until he swallowed it. I tried this the first morning - not a great success. The next day - I tried inserting it in the morning schmacko (the dog equivalent of catnip) - definitely the way to do it!

They are still very picky with their food - but then they are very small. They also bark at every bird that lands in the yard as well as at the dogs next door (on both sides) and are constantly fighting amongst themselves for dog supremacy and for me to decide which is best dog. They are actually rather cute and entertaining and always pleased to see me when I get home or let them out of the laundry in the morning. My terry towelling dressing gown is a source of great interest to them - who knows why.

This is only a short house sit of two weeks. The worst thing really about house sitting - apart from the pets - is the cleaning up and packing that you have to do at the end. But I am always happy not to spend too long with one set of pets. Where are those pet free house sits? I know they are out there - just like the truth in the X files.

New horizons

2005-09-27T15:00:00.000+09:30

Well, I can't pretend it wasn't a huge relief to leave the last house sit. In fact I was counting down the days - counting down the dog walks: three dog walks to go! two! My welcome back for the owners was quite genuine. The parrot was looking very unwell the day before they came back but had picked up fortunately by the next morning.

The dogs were momentarily confused and the transition back to their proper owners was not instant. When I finally left the old dog Hutch was looking miserable and Cobber had his security chicken firmly lodged in mouth. At least the owners knew I hadn't been beating and starving them in their absence. In fact, they were disgusted by how lenient I had been. I also abandoned the leaf lined swimming pool with non functional Kreepy Krauly with a split in the hose to them with pleasure.

So on Sunday I trekked down to the bay for my next sit. A smaller and less grandiose but very nice house. In fact, I feel more comfortable and at home in this one. It is all decorated in minimalist white with a few comfortable couches (one red and one green, plus another ultra modern one) and top of the range kitchen and TV viewing equipment. My sort of decor. It is in one of those kind of toy town upmarket housing estates - with newspapers on the lawn every morning, the dog(s), automatic garage doors, a guy who comes around to wash your wheely bin and house cleaners arriving at the ready while the owners are out at work. It's like something out of that film Pleasantville. There is barely any room between the houses and although they are separate houses - it is almost like living in townhouses.

I haven't mentioned the pets yet. Two tenterfield terriers who are into frenzied barking at the flimsiest of excuses. But they are easy to look after after the previous pets! They are only allowed into one tiled downstairs room and sleep in the laundry at night. I have to say I am not keen on the practice of sharing one's own living space with pets - conditions I had to endure with the two cats in Paddington and in the Westlake house. At least at Westlake I didn't have to fight with the pets for occupancy of my bed at night! The terriers are also nice and small after the staffy and the cattledog. They are actually almost cute when they bury themselves completely under their blankets to sleep at night. They didn't want to eat much of their food the first night I was there and started off slowly on their food last night - until I gave them a few shreds of the rack of lamb I had cooked myself for dinner. They decided at that point that I was clearly not trying to poison them if I could give them my own food.

Kangaroo

2005-09-20T19:08:00.000+09:30

A pretty weird thing happened this morning while I was out blearily stumbling along, coerced by the dogs into the daily 6 am walk. A huge grey kangaroo came around the corner and bounded down the road. This interested the dogs a great deal. The kangaroo sped up when it saw the dogs and disappeared over the hill. The old cattle dog Hutch took some persuasion to stop looking after the long gone kangaroo. Pretty odd considering this was suburban Brisbane a mere 25 minutes drive from the city centre.

Cobber the staffy seemed a bit more cheerful when I got home this afternoon. He had destroyed his latex chicken with squeaker (see picture above) which he latches on to with desperate melancholy whenever I go out - so yesterday evening I rang the owners holidaying in Paris to ask where they had got it. They roared with laughter when I told them it was his security chicken and a replacement was urgently needed. They told me I had made their day. I immediately went out to K-mart and purchased a replacement which was a great success.

The parrot

2005-09-19T08:59:00.000+09:30

The 6 am walks are really taking their toll. Even the dogs know I am an absolute wreck at that time of morning. Buckbeak the princess parrot also has a field day squawking continuously until I get up and ply her with food (sunflower seeds, strawberries, bananas, passionfruit, apple, carrot - you name it!). But it's not just food she wants. She loves having her beak stroked and could let me do that for hours - that is if I had the hours to spend! She likes me blowing on her and having her feathers stroked - but the beak is her favourite. She also just likes having me near the cage so that she can inspect me with interest and for her own amusement. This is one seriously bored parrot.

The literature says she should actually be in an aviary with a partner and a small flock, so it's no wonder she gets very stroppy. There are not too many Princess parrots in the wild any more. It's hilarious the way she picks up food and chucks it aggressively to the bottom of her cage where she eats it later. The owners let her out inside the house every night to fly around a bit and parade around on Fred's shoulder - like long John Silver - and nibble on his ear. (Fred's wife has a few disgusted comments to make about that! 'The parrot's in love with you Fred!') Buckbeak is seriously missing the exercise and Fred!

Reflections on house sitting

2005-09-18T11:26:00.000+09:30

I haven't mentioned yet how much I am enjoying this whole house sitting venture. If there are things you don't like about your current place you know that it is not forever and that you have another exciting place to look forward to! It's perfect for a constantly dissatisfied person like myself. There is an endless series of exciting possibilities always about to happen and you don't have to go back to something you don't like. Realising that you don't have to go back and that you are constantly moving on is an interesting experience in itself. New suburbs, new shopping centres, new highways and new and interesting houses. Seeing what works and what doesn't in different homes.

My current house is absolutely magnificent - luxurious and incredibly comfortable with fantastic views over the river of just bush - nothing urban in sight - yet only 25 minutes drive to the city. No traffic noise and dark at night - my idea of heaven! There is a wonderful kitchen which makes cooking unbelievably easy. The only down side is the pets - who are lovely and well trained - but labour intensive. But again, the great thing about house sitting is that you know it is not forever and in any case - you need something to make you look forward to the next place!

I am enjoying meeting new and very diverse people and the pets are an interesting challenge. I have to admit I would definitely prefer house sits without pets, but these are not easy to come by. I am operating on the principle of taking the first reasonable offer that comes along, only rejecting those which are absolutely undoable as it may be the only opportunity of a house sit.

Still very windy today. Leaves and twigs everywhere. I have given up on the Kreepy Krauly. One of the dogs - the Staffy - is showing all the signs of deep depression. He was traumatised by a big thunderstorm a week ago, then didn't like the fact I went out during the week a few times and that his dinner was served a couple of nights at 6 pm instead of the militarily precise 4 pm. Pile on top of this the huge 12 hour gale on Friday night, a visit to the vet on the same day and you have one anxious dog. He is totally convinced that his owners have abandoned him and are never coming back. But they are - on Saturday - fortunately for him, the parrot and for me! At least the old cattledog is pretty laid back about everything.

A possibility of a good six month house sit starting next January has just come up. I have seen the outside of the house and it looks good and is in a great location - but I'll reserve judgement until I see the inside and meet the two cats. Pets again - but one has to compromise in this game. I am meeting the owner tomorrow afternoon.

I went and looked at the house I will be looking after in November yesterday. Two lovely dogs - a border collie and a westie - they should be nice to look after.

Big storm

2005-09-17T09:51:00.000+09:30

There was a huge gale force storm last night which continues to rage today. The Kreepy Krauly filter in the swimming pool which suffered after another big storm a week ago has definitely died, choked no doubt on a surfeit of invisible leaves which I can't detect anywhere in its workings. I will have to ring for service next week.

I was particularly proud of myself yesterday. This house sit which started three weeks ago has been my first encounter with dogs. I have never had anything at all to do with dogs before - except eye them from a suspicious distance. They are both actually lovely dogs who are beautifully trained and very well looked after - not to say spoiled to death by their owners.

In an act of unprecedented bravery, I actually took both dogs to the vet yesterday as the Staffy -Cobber- had a red eye and ears and the old Cattlebreed Cross - Hutch had a big lump on her leg. It turns out the lumps (there were several) were not immediately life threatening and some of them had already been there on her last visit to the vet. But both dogs had fleas, which explained Cobber's red eye and ears - so anti-inflammatories for Cobber and flea treatment (applied by me) for both dogs. Plus instant washing and vacuuming of everything!

The dogs didn't like the car. Cobber who is a bit of a drama queen hyperventilated all the way there and back smearing slobber over my back window. Hutch a retired working dog was a bit more prosaic but still unsettled about the whole event.

Buckbeak the Parrot is one stroopy bird - but more of her later. Everybody (myself included) has been endlessly enjoying themselves with remarks concerning whether she is (or ought to be) nailed to the perch or is otherwise pining for the fjords. She is definitely pining for her owners but still eating like a horse!