August 18 - September 3 / Little Easton, England

Our last morning in Newick was very casual. Our bus wasn’t until noon, so we had an easy morning -- though it started to piss rain…We were on our own with this sit in terms of the transport, so I wasn’t super looking forward to walking to the bus stop in the rain. It subsided just long enough for our walk though. And thankfully the bus stop itself was covered. We were kind of brickin it for a minute though because the bus was like 20 minutes late. I had to pee really bad too, but I just could bring myself to piss behind the bus stop on the side of the road. There just wasn’t enough cover.

Thankfully the bus did fucking come though, and when we got off at the train station - there was a Waitrose (swanky grocery store). Kris parked it with our stuff at the Waitrose cafe and I went into the store to procure some lunch. We ate part of it at the cafe and saved the rest for the train. The train ultimately dropped us off at Stansted Airport, which was where our new hosts were picking us since it was only a few minutes from their house.

That was a little awkward. The host had told us to follow the signs to some sort of pick up area -- but when we got off the train, there were no signs that said '“pick up area”. So we just made our way to the exit of the airport and called him from the curb and told him where we were. He told us to “walk towards the road” and he’d meet us there. So we walked across the parking lot towards the road -- but the whole lot was fenced in, so we couldn’t actually get out to the road….so it was super confusing. We just sorta waited at the end of the row of parking, figuring we’d see him eventually and he would pull in. Why he wouldn’t just come in and grab us at the curb, I wasn’t sure. I just sat down on the asphalt, I was so tired and kind of annoyed.

A few minutes later he drove by….and then he pulled over on the side of the road….and walked over to the fence, as in - he wanted us to heave all of our bags over and climb over. Several people drove by and told us not to do that because we’d get fined, but I mean. What the fuck. It was so awkward. And then we got into his range rover that was his work truck so it was just dirty and not super comfortable and it just wasn’t a great first impression.

BUT. We got to the house and it was just as it appeared in the photos - baller as fuck.

It was also a little weird because we had only ever talked to the wife and never to the dude who picked us up. And the wife wasn’t there when we arrived. And the dude was super nice, but was just sorta like - here’s your room, make yourselves at home. Whereas women are generally like - here’s your room and here’s the clean towels and do you want to take a shower or are you hungry, you know - they do a proper check in. But anyway.

The room was nice. The whole house was only built a few years ago so everything was just so sharp and crisp and clean, no clutter, it was great. I showered and we changed and then wandered back down the grand staircase and into the kitchen. The dude resurfaced and we started chatting and then the wife got home and then their hot adult son emerged as well.

He was so fucking hot.

And the wife was just like this quintessential british chatterbox fairy lady. She had a great accent and was super funny and boisterous and friendly. We all had a good chat and then eventually she started making some dinner. We had never talked about food but I mean. At this point it’s safe to assume they were going to feed us. Also I mean. Where the fuck would we have gotten food? They picked us up from the train station and took us directly to their house and there was nothing within walking distance.

ANYWAY. She boiled up some tortellini and roasted some broccoli and that was that -- the five of us sat down and had a great time chatting and they were just the nicest, most friendliest people we had ever met. Turns out dude is a builder and built himself a reputable construction company and then finally a few years ago they were in the position to build their dream house from scratch. They lived in the backyard in a camper for two years during the build and then they moved in. And the house really is spectacular. It’s spacious, but not too big. And it was decorated really colorfully and warmly and just finished so nicely. And did I mention the son was so fucking hot?

After dinner they sort of retired into the living room to hang out and watch T.V. and we were pretty fucked out so we just went upstairs to unpack and lounge in bed. And they left at the crack of dawn the next morning, so we didn’t even see or hear them the next day.

Our first morning there was nice - they have a higher end espresso machine so it was really nice to have a proper latte for the first time in weeks.

Kris demos The Puck Sucker

And the dog is just the sweetest little grandma lab - almost the same as the first lab at our first house sit in Scotland. In her teens and just chill as fuck. We assessed the situation as far as the food scene and then I placed a big Tesco order for the next day.

The outdoor space was just so nice. The whole house was sort of oriented around the back yard and both the kitchen / dining room and the living room each had a whole wall of glass-paneled doors that opened up to the outside. And outside it was just very well designed and well kept - even the chicken coop was tidy and posh.

The next day our groceries came and the nicest fucking guy delivered them. It was once again so amazing to have this gigantic kitchen to prepare meals in and a dishwasher for clean up. We had made a particularly spicy meal one night, and the next morning he said, “You ain’t got the d-butt? No fire shits? Dang, gurrrrl.”

Did I mention the indoor / outdoor design of the house was just so fabulous?? It was so easy to sit outside with morning coffee and with lunch and not have any bugs and not have to do anything extra to go outside like we have to in Maine. We could just seamlessly go from the inside to the outside. No mosquitoes, no ticks, hardly even any flies. It’s nuts how they don’t even have screens over there. It was a little weird though because it meant that the dog would waddle outside and just barely make it off the porch before it shat. One more Kris was laughing over how his brain works as he saw one of the dog’s turds and thought, “A duke from the duchess”. He also took to calling her Patty Duke. Oh, and the set up also meant that the chickens could come inside the house if you weren’t watching:

They had a cute little garden in the back also and we got some blueberries and a bunch of kale, among other things. One morning he said: look at all these berries in my breakfast!

Me: Jesus, all that fiber, it's gonna come out your ass in 20 minutes

Him: It's gonna come out YOUR ass in 20 minutes!!!!

The walks were kind of bullshit though. In fact, the “perks” of this house sit really stopped with the house. It wasn’t in a town and there weren’t any trails or anything nearby. The house sat on the corner of two intersecting back roads -- meaning they were tiny as fuck super narrow two-way streets….with no shoulder and no sidewalk. So they were fucking awful to walk down - you couldn’t relax at all, you had to be on full alert watching for cars in both directions. It sucked so much ass.

And having the dog with us was even worse. It was weird too because the hosts had referenced a “grassy field” across the street where they went with the dog -- but the only field across the street was a hay field that had recently been cut, so it had jagged, hard 12 inch hay stalks…..which are horrible to try to walk in / through - that’s not really a thing. And it’s terrible for the dog, too -- it hurts their paws. So I didn’t fucking get where the fuck they took this goddamn dog on walks. It was terrible.

Another day we tried walking the other way down the other street because there was half a sidewalk for a little bit - but it was really short and was not a great walk. Here’s my awesome walk fashion:

We also tried to brave the shitty road and see if it led anywhere cool - we didn’t take the dog with us the first time just so we could scout it out. And it was a cool walk, but just not worth the narrow shitty road to get to and from the trail, and it wasn’t something we could do with the dog either.

Anyway, we kinda just took to not walking the dog because the conditions were so shitty and we were scared she was going to get hit by a goddamn car. It sucked. Also she was old and didn’t really want to go anyway, and had a huge ass yard to run around in all day. We tried to throw ball with her a few times, but she was dumb as fuck and didn’t know how to play fetch. It was sort of comical actually.

About a week in, we decided to try walking into town to see how it was. The first part sucked as we got out of their neighborhood - we had to cross a busy roundabout and the '“sidewalk” was kind of a joke.

But once we got to the next part - it was actually really nice! It was fuckin far though. So as cute as the town center was, it wasn’t really feasible to go there very often. But anyway -- the rest of the walk was cute and the town was darling.

And on our final weekend the hosts had left us tickets they got for some village festival that was right up the street. We had to walk up the tiny narrow shitty street - but there was so much traffic going to the festival that the cars were going so slow and it wasn’t as nerve wracking. And the festival was cute! It was just a fuckin little country festival. There were old collector cars, a dog show, sheepdogs showing off, tons of vendors and food. We were super glad we had gone early on the first day though because that shit ended up being hella packed. By the time we left - all the lines for everything were insane and the whole thing was just a bit overrun. We thought we might go back the next day too, but in the end it wasn’t that cool, so we didn’t.

And just like that - our trip had come to an end. It was actually really nice because the day before we left the hosts had their cleaning lady come - so we didn’t have to do anything. That was amazing. Before she came though, Kris said: “We'll have to remove some of our most egregious shit smears before she arrives, lest she think we're fucking cavemen.” Ha. So we did. We were staying an extra night, so our hosts got back on Saturday afternoon and our flight out was Sunday morning. Late in the afternoon on that Saturday, we decided to take ourselves out for a pub dinner on our last night. We braved the shitty, narrow road and walked up to the pub, only to order pints and find out they weren’t serving food. Ha.

But we had our pints and it was quaint and we got back and told our hosts that we had gotten fucked out of food at the pub, so he offered to drive us into town so we could grab some take out. Because otherwise we had no food. And the walk into town was like 45 minutes each way. So that was cool - he drove us in and we had nice chats and we got some fish and chips and came back and sat on the patio to eat. It was sort of a funny last night in the end. I’m going to miss this view and this outdoor dining scene.

After we finished our dinner and they finished unpacking their cars, we all ended up hanging out in the kitchen for awhile and then eventually in the lounge watching T.V. They were just the nicest people and it was a nice note to end on. As we were laying in bed that night, Kris started laughing and said: “If we ever made a rap album together, it would be Hunnit-K and Lil DeeBee - Da Bofidus”. Did I mention we’re MFEO?

The next morning we sat enjoying this view from the kitchen for one last time:

And we had more nice chats over coffee with our hosts and then the nice host man dropped us off at Stansted airport where we were actually catching a bus to Heathrow Airport. The bus ride was uneventful and getting to Heathrow was a fucking dream - this whole trip we had been flying in out of the tiny, shitty airports so it was goddamn great to be back in a nice modern proper fucking airport. I was sad to eat the last of these chips:

As we were sitting at the gate, he started laughing and said, “It'd be funny to have a t-shirt with a QR code in it.... And when you scan it, it just says Fuck You.”

45 minutes later: “Or it has like a picture of a butthole.”

And the flight was fine. We had parked ourselves at the gate early, so we got seats like right by the opening to the boarding line. That was nice to be able to stay sitting the whole time. On board I ended up binging that fucking cheese dick show Fatal Attraction and that was super fun.

Then the journey continued. After we landed at like 6pm local time in Boston, which was 11pm according to our body clocks / U.K. time, we had to get the shuttle to the rental car place and then go find our rental car in the massive garage. The rental car employees were so harried and gruff and weird, the whole experience was fucking bizarre. But we got our car and got on our way to drive the last 3 hours home. It’s so nuts though to have to pay like $250 to rent a car one way just to actually get home. I am so over living in Maine, it’s the lamest shit ever.

We stopped at a Taco Bell part way through our drive and ended up in the longest goddamn drive through line in history because they were short staffed. And then we made it back to Waldoboro. The trailer looked insane -- there had been a fuck ton of rain that summer so the yard looked like a goddamn jungle. We had to like wade through waist high brush just to plug our water hose in. But inside the trailer was totally fine! It was so novel to come back to our home just as we left it, with everything untouched. Previously, when we’ve had a home to come back to, that home had been sublet the whole time. So it was always a fuckin crapshoot what condition it was going to be in. And only when we subletted it to actual friends we knew in real life was the condition good upon our return. The couple of times it was randos - the house was just dirty and gross.

ANYWAY SO THAT WAS AWESOME. I pulled out sheets out of storage and they stank so fucking bad. I’ll know for next time to have a different bedding plan worked out. So I made the bed with the stinky sheets and we crawled into our bed with snacks and watched a Seinfeld and holy fuck it was just so amazing to be back in our own space.

I wonder if we’ll ever house sit again. I wonder if that will be the last budget trip we’ll ever take. I really fuckin hope so.

Our Final House Sitting Gig: 2 Weeks in Little Easton (August 2023)