Max and Paul's Excellent Adventure

The day has finally come to leave the UK.  Excitement with a few nerves mixed in made for a very surreal morning.  The excitement part was for the new adventure, and the nerves were for two things.  Firstly, I wasn't sure how the UK passport officers would react regarding my status as there was no real record of my stay in the UK.  Having travelled to Ireland on two occasions, I left the UK and entered the EU but there were no checks at the ferry terminal on either side so there was no one to process or stamp my passport. Secondly, driving on the other side of the road as I have never done it. Max has been learning French on the Duo Lingo app so she can put this into practice. Our first destination is a sit near Bordeaux meaning we have an 867 km drive ahead of us which we split into 3 days of driving. We drove to Folkstone and drove onto the train for the 35 minute trip to Calais, France. I was surprised to find out how quick it was. After clearing both the UK and F...

 An hour and a bit drive took us to our next pet sit. Again, in a newly built house with the same character as the previous place, however, we had the pleasure of looking after 2 beautiful spaniels and two cats who were also no trouble. I'm not usually a fan of cats but these guys were easy. They looked after themselves as the cat flap allowed them to come and go which meant, no litter trays! The crew: Pablo Ozzy Ngala Tyrion Ozzy was obsessed with his ball or what was left of it... It was consistently very cold with temperatures down to -7c so I can't say I looked forward to the walks. The ice made it difficult for Max to come on the walks but all was ok as the dogs were very well-behaved and literally took themselves off through the fields. When they got to a T intersection, they waited for me to point in a particular direction and off they went! The best dogs for walking so far on this adventure. Daniel was going to be leaving for Majorca to complete his pilot training so we...

 We have made a decision to leave the UK  temporarily as there has been no news of the status of my UK passport appeal and the time allowed for me to stay will be expiring shortly. However, we had booked another two sits to take us up to the 17th of January.  Nola is a beautiful border collie who was a pleasure to be with. The house we were staying in was a new build and I must say, had the character of any new build in Australia, however, it was warm and comfortable so no complaints there. The weather was quite cold with frosts never melting for the 10 days or so we spent there. Both Max and I came down with heavy colds and we had to cancel Christmas celebrations with Daniel and Ellen. We did manage to get together a few days later so all good on that front. And having Daniel's birthday a few days later gave us all an excuse to catch up again. Having to take Nola with us to Sevenoaks wasn't a hassle at all. She was well behaved in the car and very happy to see the lad! W...

  A change of pace indeed. Driving into London wasn't too bad considering we were travelling in peak time. We pulled up in a lovely leafy street and found ourselves in a little oasis in a very ordinary part of Chiswick. (Pronounced Chizz-ick) Initially, we were to look after one dog and we ended up with two... of the most dysfunctional dogs we have had the pleasure to look after. The owner and her friend briefed us on the dogs when we got there and it was then we realised, we couldn't just leave. If there is a problem with sits, it's that sometimes you don't get the full story about the pet(s) until you get there or, find out for yourself.  Harvey Teddy As cute as they looked, both had a habit of indiscriminately snapping at us for no good reason. Teddy is a rescue, one can understand but Harvey... Oh well, we've had a good run with sits to date and being just small dogs, it was more of a nuisance than a danger. Chiswick itself was nothing to speak of either. I coul...