🐔 Chicken Poo, Chard + a day in the life of a newbie house-sitter in France | Part III | #107
🐔 Chicken Poo, Chard + a day in the life of a newbie house-sitter in France | Part III | #107
Vive le Routine! A French house-sitting diary.
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🇫🇷 Edition #107 is coming from around Tarbes, in South West France.
Bonjour! For new readers, in recent times myself and my family have been embarking on a new nomad family type adventure, with our first house-sit contract in SW France.
Note: For pet and house sitting visit TrustedHousesitters to get 25% off annual memberships use: ROREMOTE25
TLDR: 🫱🏽🫲🏾 In case you don’t know me already, I am Ro, I am based in Zaragoza, Spain with my Location Independent, somewhat Nomadic (4-6 months a years nomadic) family. For work, I am a Remote Work and Digital Nomad Expert, Advisor and Writer, oh and a Linkedin Top Voice.
All my web and FREE resource links are here and you can book a 1:1 here.
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Earlier this year, as part of my Menopause 3 Month Sabbatical Break, where I aimed to save costs as a Nomad, I tried:
A €50 lodging + food per day in the Spanish Pyrenees month long trip
House-sitting as a means to saving on travel accommodation costs
✍🏻 Notes: If you want regular updates, see y’all on Substack Notes.
Finding our first house-sit was quick, with circumstances meaning that in fact, one contract turned into two in succession, resulting in two positive sitter recommendations, but more on that later!
House-sitting 101
So in recent weeks, our days have involved a very definite routine. If you have never encountered or know nothing about house-sitting, it involves an exchange in the following way:
House Owners (HO’s) - offer their home for use to sitters.
House-sitters (HS’s) - agree to take care of the house, including any tasks required, from being in the house (for security reasons) for the period requested, caring for plants and gardens or/and caring for domestic pets and in some cases, farm animals.
Affiliates corner: Here are some of the products and services that I rate: Digital Nomad Spain set-up Advice, Nomad Health Insurance from SafetyWing or from Genki - Insurance for Nomads, best mobile laptop stand from Nexstand Laptop Riser 10% off code: ROREMOTE10, for pet and house sitting visit TrustedHousesitters to get 25% off annual memberships use: ROREMOTE25 and for reliable Spanish Accounting and Business Advice via Entre Tramites.
In our first French house-sit, as part of the agreement as house-sitters with the house owners, in exchange for a months accommodation in a beautiful French country house, we had agreed to take care of pets and carry out these basic chores:
the family cat
the chickens, 1 rooster and 3 chickens
Note: this turned into a real learning opportunity, as all 3 (yes all of the chickens!) got broody at one point or another, so we needed to care for them in a certain way and also listen to a little bit more of the complaints of the lonely rooster (on repeat!)
the houseplants
the garden, grass lawn and plants
the “kitchen garden” which was a like a small allotment with vegetables (see the below image, as an illustration)
Chard and Perpetual cabbage were available and ready for eating during all of our April stay!
the house/home, in general, including keeping it clean, putting the rubbish out, collecting the post, keeping an eye on the heating system (which can fail during storms) and other simple and common household chores
All of the above responsibilities meant that each day had a clear routine, to meet all the needs of our dependents!
A typical daily routine
Daily schedule looked like this:
MORNING
8am - Feed and water the cats and chickens.
9am - Check the garden, plants and water as needed. If there were any vegetables to harvest, gather them - the results of which are shown above!
9:30 am - Collect any Chicken Poo from the garden.
10am - Check the post box for post to be collected.
10am - Late Afternoon: Free to do whatever you like, with no other commitments!
Which was spent walking and exploring the local area, I have been sharing lots of the photos on Substack Notes.
✍🏻 Notes: If you want regular updates, see y’all on Substack Notes.
EVENING
6pm - 8pm - Feed the cats and chickens their evening meal. Check water levels.
9pm - Check house is locked up, generator/heater is operational and window shutters are closed.
I did this type of routine most days, which was fine for a solo house-sitter, but even easier when my family was around to help!
Once a week/occasionally:
Mow the lawn - this involved about 30 minutes of using an electric mower, mowing and clearing.
General tidying up “after ourselves” and keeping the house clean - this was done as needed, after meals etc.
In summary, once we got into the rhythm of this it was fine and also during the handover with the HouseOwners not only did they explain and show us most of the chores in practice, they also left a details written set of instructions. This meant everything was clear and easy to follow.
WFA Wonders
As a Remote Working nomad it felt good to have a routine and structure to my day - which is often the case as a parent anyways in Zaragoza, with school drop-off’s and pick-up’s - which already create structure in our days.
In between time, there was actually two beautiful offices and a balcony to work from, plus the kitchen table, the dining room, I was spoilt for choice!
However, I think this was my favourite place below:
The Icing on the Cake
We got our first positive review on the TrustedHousesitters platform, see below.
Note: For pet and house sitting visit TrustedHousesitters to get 25% off annual memberships use: ROREMOTE25
Which is amazing!
Keith (the HO) has agreed to write a second review, as our time actually extended to a second sit, later in April. Super news!
We have our next house-sit planned for France too, near to La Rochelle for the next time, during August.
Stay tuned for more updates!
Any questions on house-sitting? Ask in the comments! 👇
May the road rise to meet you,
love n light,
💚 Ro