With weddings and the main holiday season finished, I’ve reverted back to off-season ways to earn a crust, and this last month has been a series of four house and pet-sitting jobs, one after the other, with only one or two nights at home in-between. This takes meticulous organisation, having to predict what I’ll need to wear and do, way ahead of time, to ensure I’ve packed everything I might possibly need. I also have to predict what may be in the house I’ll be staying in. Some households empty their fridges and run all stocks down so that I have to arrive with a supply of food and drink for myself to live on, whilst others spend hours shopping and messaging me asking my likes and dislikes and fill the cupboards to bursting. This can cause dilemmas – if they’ve bought five packs of what they believe might be my favourite food but it’s actually something I can’t stand, do I leave them in the fridge? Is that rude? But if I give them away or dispose of them, there’ll be another five next time.
Some people like to give me a tour of every kitchen drawer and cupboard, but it’s really not necessary as over decades of babysitting and house-sitting I’ve leaned that most kitchens are stocked to a pattern. The mugs will be in the cupboard above the kettle; the cutlery drawer underneath that. The jars of tea, coffee etc not far away. And there used to always be a bin under the kitchen sink, but with recycling becoming a thing, this has got more complicated. I’ve even worked in houses that don’t seem to have a bin at all, anywhere. As a result I always now bring a bin liner, fill it and take it away when I go. One house had no clock, anywhere, apart from the microwave oven, which wasn’t set. Another had a clock on all four walls of every single room – there was no direction in that house you could be facing without knowing the time. When the clocks changed the other week, they must have been busy all day.
I always try to be ready for any emergency, and with so many fires and earthquakes recently, in each new setting I make contingency plans for swiftly evacuating all animals to a safe place. Most pet owners have enough cat baskets or dog leads, and I always have a car with me so that’s easily sorted, presuming I can find and catch the animals. Two huge iguanas in built-in enclosures posed more of a challenge. My first thought was than in case of an emergency evacuation situation I could slip each one inside a duvet cover, but realised their claws would rip through in seconds. Wandering outside in thought, I spotted in a part of the garden I’d not previously visited, a cage of some description. My heart plummeted as I wondered whether this contained a creature I was meant to feed that had somehow gone unmentioned…what state would it be in now…and could not have been more delighted to discover an empty, but more portable reptile enclosure. Let’s hope nobody ever needs to use it, but good to know that it’s there.
Everyone likes their pets fed and cared for in particular ways, just like with children, and after decades of childcare work this is no problem. I’m only there for a short while so I do my best to continue with the usual routine. There are challenges though. In an area with a large number of strays – well, like anywhere in Cyprus really – I was instructed ‘only feed the grey cat’. On my first evening, three identical smoke-coloured cats sat hopefully on the doorstep. I’ve been left a tub of treats bearing the legend ‘ only for the big rabbit’. I had to send photos to the owners asking which one of the two identically sized rabbits bore this title.
Pet-sitting for a neighbour means I’ve only needed to hop over the fence to grab anything I need from home, but it hasn’t half confused my own cats, who often sneak round to steal said neighbour’s cats’ food, which is a brand that two out of my two cats prefer. Coming across me chasing them out and back home was definitely a shock to the feline system. And mine, too, in fact. Having now ‘moved back’ after a month away, I can honestly say that there really is No Place Like Home.