Monday 27th January 2020

And so our house-sitting/dog-sitting week came to an end. A great experience all round and we managed to tick off this stretch of coastline walking. Despite the winter weather, soggy and slippery ground in places and me coughing and spluttering, we managed to cover the stretch between Sandbanks and Lymington … roughly 26 miles (every little helps)!

This, our second ‘Trusted House-sitter’ assignment, has been another success – a beautiful house which we managed to leave in good shape. And we’ve loved getting to know another area of the country, a perfect retirement area I would say – I’ve never seen so many bungalows. But most of all we have absolutely fallen in love with our big furry friend Bugle and getting to know his funny ways. His favourite thing is to walk between your legs, from the front and from the back … and when you’re only 5ft 4in, a Bernese Mountain Dog coming through is fairly noticeable! Being nine years of age he’s a couple of years past his sell-buy date, so you can imagine our relief that he made it through the week. We’ll miss him bounding up to meet us, dragging his toys as a welcome gift, knocking on the door when he wants to come in from the garden and generally craving company and cuddles.

So bye bye Bugle and farewell to the land of bungalows and beach huts … it’s been a blast.