Phase I : Scotland

"Aye, but do ye like the wind, and the wet?"

Our first house sit was actually in Brisbane. Our house at Cashmere sold much more quickly than we'd thought (looking for an estate agent in Pine Rivers? Len Worthington is your man) and we were still six to eight weeks away from ready to go. We found a house sit in Samford, starting the day after our place settled, and up to a week before we left for Scotland! So we looked after two cats, three dogs and an acre and a half at Samford while their owner went to the US on a series of courses and conferences.

We weren't sure exactly where we would start off. We scanned the various Internet sources to see what popped up. Pretty soon one came up: caretaker of Kilchrist Castle cottages, on the Kintyre peninsula, only a few miles from the famous Mull. We took it!

There are five cottages, four of which are in one building, the Old Byre of Kilchrist. We live in the fifth, detached cottage which presumably would have been the shepherd's cottage. The Old Byre was also a "dove coote", and the holes in the attic wall that the doves flew in and out of are still there. The Castle (a bit pretentious, it was built as Kilchrist House by the under Sherrif of Argyll in 1824) and cottages were sold about five years ago on the death of old Campbell Angus, to an Englishman who is rarely here. He sold off the cottages to the present owner, a lady from Yorkshire. They stood empty for most of that five years, so there's a lot of "maintaining" to do.

When we had been here a couple of days, we were at the printers getting some CVs done up. Recognising our accent, the bright young printer said "you'll notice the difference in temperature, compared to where you're from". "Oh no", says Tich, veteran of two Scottish winter visits, "we like the cold". Unbeknown to us, an old Scotsman had come in. The dour voice came from behind us: "Aye, but do ye like the wind, and the wet?"

Actually, the weather hasn't been too bad. There's been wet and windy days, but plenty of brilliant sunny ones too.

posted by The Boemelaars @ 10:50 am