We have embarked on a new step of our lives and have moved out of our house and now embarked on living in other peoples homes.

This is not squatting but house sitting by prior arrangement and looking after the owners animals while they are away.

Currently we are house sitting in Orini, Waikato, looking after 3 dogs, 3 cats, 2 horses and 7 or 8 hens. (I keep trying to count them but they keep moving)

The morning routine is get up, feed the dogs and kitten while making a cup of tea. Afterwards it is take the dogs outside to feed the hens and get back in doors before the dogs. That way they can go off and do their business before coming back in.

After breakfast it’s feed the horses. Then the rest of the day is pretty much ours to do what we want. Only thing left to do is to find the 2 timid cats and try to get them to eat. We’ve given up calling them and hope thy will come to the house when they are hungry enough.

Anyway we started off doing very little during the days as it was weather was rather unsettled.

On Saturday we went off and visited Jo’s parents and then ended up walking from their house to Claudlands event centre and back.

Sunday after completing our chores we headed off down the road to go for a bush walk.

On the return leg of the walk we came across a family, with a cage and a whole family of hens, that were wandering around the cage. Jo in her usual un-observant  way walk through the middle of the hens, scattering them in all directions.

We stopped and chatted for a while only to find out they were trying to get the hens into the cage as they had been abandoned there a week earlier. They had to start all over again thanks to Jo’s intervention.