Housesitting in the mother country

It's been 13 months since I was in a country that spoke my language natively and it's nice to be able to talk to locals without any language barrier. I'm doing a house sit in Hungerford which is a small charming English town with only 5000 inhabitants. There's a lot to get through so I'll break it down. Let's start with the housesitting. The house is a charming maze like cottage, built in the 1500's and home to Bevil and Jane Granville (who are awesome) and also have a property in Mallorca. That's where they are now and why we are here.  

Tarka is a 9 month old golden cocker spaniel who we walk, feed and train as the main daily task. She is an awesome dog. Smart, funny and entertaining.  

Other jobs include installing a cupboard fridge, some garden work, housekeeping and watering plants. Pretty easy and relaxed. I've always admired Aga stoves so I can't help using it as much as I can and even tried my hand at baking as many things as I could from scratch. That might not sound like much, but for me, a guy who doesn't bake, it's a big deal. As I imagined it's a great cooking appliance. But takes some getting used to.  

Now the town... Hungerford has a beautiful canal, river and common grounds. It's not very far from Reading and dates back to 1343. The High street is primarily made up of antique shops and hairdressers and as Bevil puts it "pretty geriatric". But the real best parts of this place is the natural beauty and preservation.  

The walking is fantastic. Along the canal, through fields, around villages or from town to town they're all fun. As there are so many large portions of land designated as common the paths run in, under and over so much awesome landscape. The canal walks in particular are quite special. I normally take longer to get anywhere when walking the canal as I find myself stopping to take photos, chat to people and even help open the lock. Some of the homes that dot the canal are really impressive also.  

Some activities... £12 gets me admission to an FA cup football game between 15th (Hungerford) and 4th on the divisional ladder. It was a bit of a scrap with very few scoring opportunities for both teams In the end the game finished in a 1-1 draw. A score line the home team would have taken at the start of the game I reckon as the second leg saw Hungerford go down 6-1. The crowd was typically loud and shouted obscene expletives which even raised my brow.  

We were pretty excited about the town food festival but it turned out to be a bit of a fizzer. Nothing to really taste and only a handful of stalls to experience.  

The first week we arrived coincided with the town art festival. Basically a number of retail outlets and the town hall combining together to display a selection of paintings by local artists. It was a good way to begin our look around the town and see some pretty good pictures. The next weekend was the time for the photography show. This was pretty average. looking at what was on display made me reassess my criticism of the photos I've taken with the iPhone. If you could afford £3000 per year you could get access to one of the very few chalk streams in the world. I was privileged to accompany Bevil on a little trip and I'd have to say that it's the clearest river water I have ever seen in my life. And a trout fishers paradise. This parcel of wonder is about 5klm long and also the home to young willow trees that will eventually be made into SS cricket bats.  

So in the end it's a great house sit for really kind and friendly people, in a naturally wonderful place looking after an excellent dog. If all house sits were like this I would be happy doing this kind of thing full time.