There is always a bit of apprehension before a house sit. A few days before, there are usually a few anxiety symptoms. Trouble breathing, feeling sick and the occasional runny poos…

Our latest house sit is in Kerikeri in the far north of New Zealand. It takes between 5 and 15 hours to drive depending on Auckland traffic. As we draw closer to our house sit location, the nerves grow. What if they take one look at us and decide they don’t like us? What if we have just driven 5 to 15 hours to housesit to be told we smell and we cannot stay there? Thankfully this hasn’t happened yet, but what if it did?

As we near our housesit, the road winds its way down a hill and we are presented with an idyllic bay. Yachts bob around on their moorings, children splash about in the water and dogs frollick on the sand. “There is is,” I announce to Mike, pointing at a two story house overlooking the bay, “the house from google maps, that’s it, that is where we are staying.”

We pull up outside. I take a quick sniff of my armpits, then we enter. On our right is an inviting pool. I’ll be looking forward to cooling off in there. We walk up the stairs and are greeted by Loes. Thankfully she doesn’t seem to cringe at our smell and she invites us in. Buddy, the doggy we are looking after is pleased to see us too. He’s a funny brown thing, similar to Casper, except bigger and browner. And he does tricks. But more of him later.

We unpack out car. It looks like we have come for a month. Lois and Gary show us around and explain how everything works. I’m busy admiring the view so I hope Mike is taking it all in. There are lots of goodies here. Kayaks, dinghy, boogie boards, swimming pool as mentioned already and a spa pool. There is also a banana tree, laden with bananas. How cool is that?

Now to just settle down, open a bottle of wine and enjoy the view.