Greetings from Katina….
Sorry I haven’t been on the blog; I was teaching an online AQ course for the month of July. I had an amazing class, but the wireless connectivity was somewhat sketchy and certainly made things more challenging. All my reports and paper work have been handed in, so now I’m ready to blog more about our travels.
I’ve been very impressed with the girls and how they have taken to the blogging – thank you for all of your comments – it’s very motivating for them when they recognize people are reading their work!
We’re now leaving beautiful Ireland and are on our way to London, England. We took a very early morning flight with Ryan Air to London. It was surprisingly well organized, and efficient. Although the flights are very cheap, they charge you a lot for your baggage. One way we were able to get around this issue was to register Oliver and my bag as the kids’ as they were half price. If questioned, we were prepared to say that Zoe and Mik were girls who needed a lot of things to travel the world for the year, while we as parents were much lighter packers:) Luckily, the lady at the check in desk didn’t bat an eyelash and just checked in our baggage without saying word. All worked out well and we were on the ground in London, England in an hour.
Once back on the ground, we went to pick up our rental car. We had booked a compact car for 30 days from Hotwire, but the sales person managed to upsell us to what he said was a 7 seat car – it is actually a FIAT where the last 2 seats fold down so you have trunk space. Oliver says it’s a lot like driving a go cart , but hey – it’s getting us around.
After a quick refresh, we drove over to our next house sitting place. We met such a wonderful family – Fiona, Lyall, Luke 17 and Sophie 15. They are such a warm and welcoming family and we were quickly captivated by all of their great stories of travel and education. Fiona is a Reading Recovery teacher and Llyal is a Facilities Manager of a primary school in an inner city area. Fabulous story on how Lyall travelled from NZ during his gap year, met Fiona on his way home, and then travelled some more with her. They ended up getting married and have settled down in London for the past 20 years.
We are able to stay in their beautiful home for 2 weeks because they are taking a lovely vacation to Greece. It was also Lyall’s birthday so we had our first British Birthday tea celebration with chocolate cake and biscuits. It was fun to see how similar our traditions are in many ways.
We also learned how to take care of their beautiful bunnies Magic and Meeka. They have a really neat play area for the rabbits that the girls learned how to set up. The rabbits each have a hutch that needs cleaning so the girls will be busy with rabbits for the next two weeks!
Overall, it was a beautiful start to our next housesitting experience. The family is warm and wonderful and I know the girls will love being with the rabbits. It’s great to stay in a home and see how the locals live. I really like trusted housesitters for this reason….we are meeting some great families that I think we could be real friends with, as they are like minded and very interesting. Looking forward to lots of fun in London!
Comments
13 responses to “On the Move to London England!”
It’s great that you guys found people to stay with wherever you are staying but when did you plan it or are you still finding people to stay with for the following year? I hope to talk to you guys soon.♡♥♡♥:-)
HI Angie,
Nice to hear from you! We check the website trustedhousitters.com everyday; if there is an opportunity for us to mind some pets while we travel – then we contact the owner and see if it’s a good fit for both families! For Ireland and London, it has worked for us perfectly – the house and pets are taken care of while people are away on their own vacation, and we have a beautiful home to stay in. We hope to book stays like this throughout the year – but it depends on if our dates and route matches those who want housesitting done, as well as if the animals are what we are comfortable caring for. There was one place that wanted their pig to be watched…so since we don’t have experience with farm animals, we took a pass:)
Love to everyone,
Katina:)
That is fantastic! We have enjoying reading the girl’s posts as well as Oliver’s. The posts are very detailed and well written. Keep them coming:) looking forward to reading about your adventures.
Hi Iniyal,
Thanks for your comment – glad to hear you have enjoyed our postings. The girls have been working really hard at their writing – so thank you for your feedback. We hope you are also enjoying a nice Canadian summer! The weather here has been fantastic…not the stereotypical UK weather, (knock on wood). Tomorrow we’re off to the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, England – a lesson on longitude and latitude is on the horizon!
Take care and hope the family is doing well!
Love,
Katina:)
You guys look like you are having so much fun! Hope you have a great time in England! Stay safe and have even more fun!
Thanks Isabelle,
We’ll keep counting the redheads in England and get back to you!
Love,
Zoe:)
Love the snap of the FIAT…..can Oliver fit in there?
Jaime says hello to M and Z and says……”don’t forget to keep those new bunnies apart because they are known to multiply quickly”. LOL!!!
Hugs to you all……..xo
Hi Karen,
Yes – Oliver “folds” himself into the FIAT – brings me back to my highschool days when FIATs were everywhere! When we tell local people we have a FIAT, their response is – “Are they still making those cars?”
As for the rabbits – they are both girls, and we’re happy with just the two!
Take care,
Love,
Kat:)
Hi, Katina, great to hear from you. We too enjoyed all the postings and with the photos learned so many things about Ireland. It’s wonderful that you meet so many nice people and make good connections. The bunnies sound adorable, and I bet Mikhaila and Zoe enjoy looking after them. Wish you a happy stay in London. Again gazillions of XOXOXO’s to all of you
Thanks Oma – hope you and Opa are doing well.
Love,
Kat:)
Hey Katina
I am enjoying reading the blogs. I can’t believe…but I am not surprised that you taught a summer course on line….this school year will certainly be different without you…..looking forward to continuing reading about your family’s journey throughout the year. Take care
Hi Linda,
Hope you’re having a great summer!
We have a neat wireless device that attaches to my computer and gives up to 5 devices connectivity (Tep mobile wifi). This in theory would allow us to always be connected and the kids could do their online work, I could teach my course etc…Reality however, showed us that we used up our wireless contract in 21 days when we thought it would last us 45 days! We have now purchased more GB for downloading….hopefully this will last us a bit longer:)
I need to cut back on my online use….but there is just so much out there and available for teaching the kids and planning the trip….
Enjoy August!
Cheers,
Kat:)
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