Tunbridge Wells, England / July 22-August 11, 2023

Fuck me, this ended up being our least favorite sit, by a long shot. It seemed so promising though! Big nice house, cute dogs, cute town, but no. None of it was what it seemed.

It started out nice though in that the host sent a car to pick us up so we didn’t have to take the bus. She was already gone, but her adult son greeted us at the house and did the handover. It was two dogs - one was the most stupid adorable pomeranian puff ball I’ve ever seen. She was like a little toy. But the other was this spastic, nervous, if-the-archetype-”Karen”-were-a-dog kinda dog. So that was a real bummer.

The house makes a great first impression, but once we started getting settled in, it was kinda all downhill.

The nice, big comfy looking sectional couch turned out to be a dumpy, lumpy, uncomfortable couch that was basically just a giant dog bed - it was caked in hair and was the dogs main hang out space. The style-y looking Eames chair was weird - because we both sat in it and were like - wait, why is this uncomfortable? This is normally the most comfortable chair ever made, we’ve sat in loads of them. Well - turns out this one was a knock off. That’s why it was uncomfortable.

The nice breakfast bar had stools in it that were too tall and were just sort of light and plastic feeling, like there was no weight in the base whatsoever -- so every time you sat in one you felt like it was going to fall over. The dining table was in this weird, dark nook and was just sort of grimy and gross and all the chairs were caked with hair. The chairs also didn’t fit the table, so when you sat down - the tops of your thighs were nearly touching the table, making it super awkward to get in and out of.

We ended up finding the small front room, which was the “man cave” to be where we ended up spending most of our time. The dogs didn’t go in there, so it was relatively clean, and it had a very comfortable couch. But it was a small room, so by the end we felt a little cooped up.

Thankfully the bed was comfortable, but the bedroom itself was kind of a bummer in that it was really small and cramped and had a pitched roof around the bed.

Just a bunch of little things too like the downstairs bathroom hadn’t been cleaned so the toilet, sink and mirror were just nasty as fuck. The big fancy bathtub upstairs was also grimy and covered in filth that we had to scrub off before we could use it. The kitchen trashes hadn’t been taken out and they were overflowing and stinky, and even when we took them out - the actual cans themselves were so disgusting that it pretty much continued to stink. I wasn’t about to scrub these motherfucker’s trashcans, so I took to just dousing the whole trash scene in essential oils to cover up the smell.

The kitchen itself also seemed nice - big range, tons of counterspace, etc. But they had like almost no cookware. They had a few random pots that were like from the $20 set you buy at Wal-Mart for your first apartment, they were awful. The knives were like plastic toys, there were very few utensils. It was just weird. It was like a chef’s kitchen, but with no equipment. And they even had one of those bullshit gimmicky coffee machines, which my boyfriend had all kinds of thoughts about, ha.

Also just. The area sucked. The house itself was on the actual main road through town and it was very loud and very busy with tons of traffic all day long. It was really unpleasant to walk down that road into the center of town, but there was no other way to get to town. There were very few footpaths, if any. And the few walks we went on just sucked. The town green space sucked, the woodlands were super ghetto and just everything we tried to do there was sort of a bummer.

Two nice things though were a nearby pub that had half priced burgers on Sundays - we did that one Sunday and the food was delicious. And then there was a proper coffee shop about 10 minutes down the road, so that was a nice treat.

Another day we walked into town for groceries, and as we were getting closer to the store I said, “Well, wait - do you wanna like walk around a bit before we get our groceries?” And he said, “Well this is around, so be walkin'“ and I about died laughing.

We were lucky with pretty nice weather too - it felt very autumn-like so it was fun to make soups and stews and more cold weather food. Kris also was a guest on the Real Vision Crypto Distillery monthly show again and he did so good and it was a really fun episode. The chemistry between Kris and the other three guests was just so good.

We tried to like the dogs, we really tried, but goddamit they were awful. The one in particular was just so codependent and needy. It was just awful. They were not fun to be around and were just super annoying and obnoxious and yappy. Taking them on walks was god awful too, they were not well trained on their leashes at all so they would just pull and they also were not well socialized so if they saw another dog, they’d freak out, or a cat or even sometimes just a person. It was so unpleasant to walk them because every second was just management. Also the one dog liked to literally eat the other dogs shit, so you were always on shit patrol. That was fuckin jack nasty.

I went on a little baking bender though and that was fun! I made this tits bangin’ strawberry bread and then these fucking ridiculously fudgy and insane peanut butter cookies.

And we had a fun social outing one day - we took the train into London to meet one of Kris’ online crypto friends that he’d met through Real Vision. I finally got to wear my fuckin favorite skirt and I just looked so adorable, it was so fun.

We got off the train and went to Borough Market to get some food to-go to eat while we were sitting along the Thames. We ended up getting some bangin’ salmon bagels and a tub of brie mac and cheese holy fucking shit. We sat along the river for a bit and then met up with the dude and he was so nice! We walked for a bit and then ended up sitting in the grass down by the London Eye. It was all well and good until I got shot in the eye with some warm, viscous liquid. It was so disorienting, like - it felt like someone had shot a little bullet of ranch dressing and it had exploded on the corner of my eyeball. My instinct was not to rub it, thankfully, and I was just ike - uh, I need a napkin, like NOW. And I wiped it away and then my eye was kind of burning so I grabbed my water bottle and started squirting it in my eye. I probably looked halfway insane, but I also I was super chill about it, I mean - a bird had literally just shat in my eye. I could’ve run away screaming.

In the end, it was very funny. And when I got home later I looked up the significance of not only being shat on, but being shat on in the eye. Basically I should go buy a lottery ticket. So I mean. Wouldn’t that be funny in hindsight if a bunch of cool shit happens that I can tie back to having been shat on? Oh, the irony.

Anyway. After that shitcident, we continued walking and talking and eventually stopped at a pub along the Thames and it was the most perfect day and we sat right on the water at a picnic table and drank delicious ciders and had nice chats and it was just a really fun day.

After we parted ways, Kris and I went back to Borough Market, but it was closed, so we ended up just going to good ol’ Bills and having an early dinner before we got back on the train. That was nice. Their food is just solid and the atmosphere is always nice. Kris was like so tired from having basically talked for like 4 hours straight.

The rest of that week was pretty chill. I had picked up a few new V.A. clients, so that was fun. Oh and one day we walked to the coffee shop for beans. They handed us a paper sack and we were on our way. But then we got home, Kris opened the bag, and there was a to-go box in it….and inside the box was a ham, cranberry and brie bagel. LOLOLOLOL.

We walked back to the shop….which was annoying, because we were tired, and it wasn’t super close and blah blah blah. But in the end - obvi we kept the bagel and ate it on the way home (with our beans in tow) and it was really fucking good. So I mean. I’ll take a gourmet free snack. But I mean - also that’s how exciting our time in Turnbridge Wells was. I’m writing about getting a free bagel sandwich, cuz that was news, ha.

One evening Kris had gone to take a shit, and he took his phone, which I thought stopped the music. After he was done I said “Thanks for stopping the music with your shit.” And he said the music had actually stopped prior to him going to shit. I said the whole time I had been blaming his asshole….And he said, "well you sent the wrong man to prison". And again I died laughing because he's so deadpan & redneck and fuckin funny.

Another evening we were enjoying the back patio and then the fucking dogs just started yapping. I said, “Goddamit Daisy, shut up, you're disturbing the peace.” And he said, “Imabout to go disturb the peace…..” (take a shit.)

One day we were walking around town and he saw a work van drive by and he said, ”I really like the name of their business: Drain Detectives. It's like - we'll find that fuckin piece of shit! We're on the case!”

Kinda weird at the end, too -- so our next host hadn’t contacted us, which was a little strange. Usually the hosts reach out to coordinate arrival and whatnot. This host too had said she would work out the bus route and let us know the best way to get there. I was kinda hoping she’d do that and then just offer to pick us up, since it was only a 30 minute drive. But anyway - we never heard from her, so I contacted her a few days before our arrival. And she said that she should probably let us know that her dad had been in the hospital for a few weeks and she would not be going out of town, and instead would be staying down the street with her mom, and would be “popping back to the house a few times during the week”. Ugh. It was annoying that she hadn’t let us know weeks ago….you know - so we could’ve had the opportunity to book somewhere else and A) not burden her, but B) not put ourselves in an awkward situation. She took away our choice to do that by not telling us. And it’s against the housesitting website’s policy for anyone to enter the home during the sit….but it’s not like I could tell her that….cuz she coulda just been like - “Well if you’re gonna be like that, I’ll just cancel the sit.” So I mean. It was just plain awkward. But all we could do was hope for the best, I guess.

I’ll tell you what though - that’s the general theme I’m kinda over in life - not having choices. I want abundant options and choices at all times. I’m tired of being forced to do things out of desperation. And that is what gets old about this housesitting thing, or about other things like that - you’re not totally in control. Someone else could totally fuck your plans and there wouldn’t be anything you could do about it. But anyway. It’ll probably be fine. And if not - it’s only a week.

So yeah I mean. All in all, I’d still recommend housesitting because it’s been more good than bad, and even the “bad” hasn’t been “that bad” - and “bad” is a super relative term. So like for me - you have to remember that right now, we live in a trailer. And during the summer it’s a humid swampy tick and mosquito infested nightmare. So while housesitting isn’t perfect, it’s far better than spending another summer in the trailer. And if you wanted to travel, but were short on funds - housesitting is obviously a free place to stay. And that could be the difference between traveling and not traveling. It sure was for us this time. Our budget for accommodation was literally zero. So in the end - the little bits here and there that aren’t great are a small price to pay for being able to get out and see some things instead of just continuing to stagnate.

Anyway - hopefully it’s onwards and upwards from this shithole! Onto the next place…..

3 Weeks in Shithole Tunbridge Wells, U.K. (July/August 2023)