A house worth sitting for! (from the back)
For the last month we have lived another family’s life.
We’ve slept in their beds, eaten off their dishes, read their books, collected their mail, cuddled their cats, mowed their grass, and watered their flowers. We are housesitters, taking care of a beautiful home. And the best part of all-- it hasn't cost us a thing.
During our long trip we rented 20 different houses and apartments, so we’ve lived in other people’s houses before. But most of these places were second homes or rental properties. With one awful exception, the owners really weren’t that visible. Their clothes and personal possesions were gone. The refrigerator was empty. Most of them weren’t even people we met personally. And we didn’t have any chores to do other than cleaning up after ourselves—after all, we were paying to stay there.
But this past month we’ve been housesitters—not renters. And the owners of this house are friends, people we got to know well during our long stay in Provence. They wanted someone to live in their house during their month-long trip to America, and we’re very lucky that this year that someone was us. It gave us the opportunity to come back to a place that we love at a time we couldn’t otherwise afford to be here—especially not in a place like this. And the timing was perfect—we could be away for an extended time during Kelly’s summer vacation and my break from my university teaching.
The owners of this house even encouraged us to have guests! Slow Travel friends Dennis and Gloria came for a few days, and we’ve had a couple of local friends over for lunch or dinner. I have to say that it’s been fun to show them where we are living.
“How exactly did you meet these people?” our friend Dennis asked as we showed the Martins around this big house and grounds. We seem to have hit the jackpot, for this is certainly a far grander house than any of the 20 that we rented during our “grand tour” trip. But it’s also very much a family home, where our friends—Americans who now live in France—are raising their two children. We feel very comfortable in their home.
We met the mother at Kelly’s school in Bonnieux, soon after we came to the Luberon in October 2004. Her little boy attended the village school and her daughter—a few months older than Kelly—was at another school nearby. The mom and I hatched a plan to connect our two girls, thinking each would benefit by a friend of the same age. Our families had a lot in common, and we got together several times for meals and hikes. The girls visited back and forth. Before we left, they suggested the possibility of housesitting, and we eagerly accepted.
We’d actually had some good training for this summer’s assignment. During our six-and-a-half months in the Luberon, we lived in a 400-year old farmhouse a mile or so from here. We knew what to expect in an old place like this: lots of steps inside the house, unexpected bugs (sometimes very large and creepy), total darkness in the house at night, dusty gravel roads, carting out the trash, quirky appliances, occasional power outages and gusting winds, lots of shutters and doors with unusual hardware. We also knew the logistics of the area well—where to eat and shop, where to find supplies like gas for the grill, how send a registered letter. We knew enough French to deal with service people, interact with the housekeeper, and answer the phone. And we even had a few friends to call on if we had a question or serious emergency.
Finally - a chore Kelly loves!
As housesitters, we've had some chores and responsibilities—probably averaging an hour a day each. Our friends have a large, complicated house with extensive and beautiful landscaping and two big fields. They do almost all of the yardwork themselves. For the past month we’ve taken over the care of the yard and the fields. Charley and Kelly have mowed the grass once a week, using a riding mower, a hand-pushed mower and a weedeater. Kelly thinks the riding mower is great fun—she loves it. There’s an automatic sprinkler system, but there are also several areas and perhaps 30 potted plants that have to be done by hand every day or two (depending on the weather), about a 45 minute project if it’s done right. This has usually been my job. Weeds pop up through the gravel courtyards and parking area and in the landscaping, and we have taken care of these.
Charley’s fix-it skills have come in very useful—he’s what the French call a “bricoleur.” He’s had a couple of projects here that have given him a chance to visit one of his favorite French stores: Mr. Bricolage, a smaller version of Home Depot. The pool umbrella blew away in the Mistral and was damaged. The weedeater wouldn’t work. He also volunteered for a couple of other projects for our friends: he’s put up a pulley clothes line, sealed cracks in the walls, and replaced a toilet seat.
In addition to the mowing, Kelly’s job is to collect the mail, feed the fish in the goldfish pond, and help take care of the two cats—Cookie and Potsie. The cats have been one of the best parts of our deal. Cookie is a big black cat… now the fourth black cat in our lives in the past three years. (We had Chico at the house where we lived here during our long stay, Nerino at our one week rental on Lake Como, and our own precious Nicolette who we got when we moved back to the USA. We are now “black cat” people!) The other cat is Potsie, a pretty and fluffy cat, who wasn’t quite sure of us at the beginning. The cats eat several times a day, have to be locked out when we’re gone, but locked in an upstairs room at night. We really enjoy them both, but sometimes they can be a challenge.
Cookie - another black cat in our lives
The other night at midnight Kelly and I were out in the back yard shining a flashlight and shaking a container of Friskies, and shouting: “Cookie! Potsie!” I hoped a sanglier (wild boar) wasn’t out there in that yard. We had thought the cats were in the house with us, but they had slipped out through a small second floor bathroom window. Eventually we were able to coax them both inside.
Potsie takes over the laptop
It’s complicated when we all leave the house. Our friends arm their security system every time they go out, even if they’re just going to the village. We have the routine down now, but it takes some time to make sure cats are outside and all the windows are shut (so the cats can’t get back inside) and that each of the nine exterior doors are properly shut.
There’s no air conditioning here, and it takes some work to keep the house airy and cool. When it’s very hot, we open shutters and windows early in the morning to air the house, shut everything up during the middle of the day to stay cool inside the thick stone walls, and then open everything back up in the evenings.
We’ve enjoyed the responsibility of taking care of this house, the yard, and the two cats. It’s been wonderful to live in this area again—not just be here on a trip. We all love living in the Luberon. I wake up every morning feeling good. I love living somewhere where there is a view in every direction. I love living in the midst of farmland—watching the grapes and the pumpkins grow. I love living somewhere where hundreds of years of history is all around us. I love being able to hike right out the front door. How wonderful it was for our friends to give us this gift... the chance to live here again for a treasured month.
We’ll be spending part of the next two days housecleaning, doing yard work, finishing projects, and replenishing supplies. We definitely want our friends to feel good about how we’ve cared for their home and their special things.
And maybe—just maybe—some summer in the future they’ll ask us again…
Bonnieux from the back field
