England 2, High Wycombe, Oxford, Cambridge (Apr 2 - 15)

In the early afternoon of Apr 2 we showed up, as planned, at a large country farmhouse and met Rob & Susan and their 2 large dogs, 3 cats and 31 chickens to begin our housesitting assignment. They were busy packing up their campervan and making final arrangements for their holiday to Scotland. They provided detailed instructions on how to care for the chickens, instructions on how to use the aga (the stove in the kitchen which was heated by oil and was always instantly hot), contact information for neighbours and friends in case of emergency and encouragement to eat all the eggs we could possibly consume!

Rob & Sue and dogs

Rob spent his whole life in this area, including the past 30 years in the house he built, which we stayed in. It was definitely a farmhouse, animals were allowed in and out of the house at their leisure and the free range chickens spent a lot of time pecking the lawn in front of the door but also leaving plenty of evidence of their presence (which seemed to continuously get tracked into the house!) R & S were big into gardening, composting, cooking and walking the trails in the area. When we walked the trails we regularly saw deer, pheasants, red-tailed hawks and song birds.

One of the sitting rooms

Kitchen

The fields on two sides of the house had sheep and it was birthing time so we were able to watch the day to day changes as newborn lambs learned to walk and then days later, to jump and frolic about - great entertainment!

I enjoyed getting to be a farmer for 10 days

Lambing season

Ring-necked pheasants like I remember as a child in Canada

For 3 days while doing the housesit, we spent long days attending the Skoll World Forum for Social Entrepreneurs, an annual event held in Oxford. The forum was by invitation-only and attracted 1,000 entrepreneurs from around the world. Seminars were interspersed with networking opportunities, plenary sessions, an awards banquet, a Canadian delegate breakfast and some entertainment.

Catching the Park-and-ride bus into Oxford to attend the Skoll World Forum

A couple of featured speakers were Sir Richard Branson, head of the Virgin companies and Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban on her way to school a few years ago. She had a very inspiring speech. Our purpose for being at the Forum was to promote SPECT, the organization we recently started in response to Christina's (our daughter) vision to reduce the suffering and loss of life in Africa associated with poor surgical practices. We made many contacts and felt the conference was a great way to spread the word about our work. Oh yes, we also had supper in the grand halls which were included in the Harry Potter movies!

Malala Yousafzai speaking at Skoll World Forum

We left the housesit on Apr 13, then spent a day in Cambridge (another beautiful and fascinating place to visit) and then spent a couple of days in London.

At Cambridge Univ Botanic Garden

Popular way to spend Sunday afternoon in Cambridge

Corpus Christi College

Corpus Christi College reflected in window

King's College

Christ's College

One of Christ's College more famous students

Springtime in England, at Christ's Pieces, Cambridge

From here, we have arranged another housesit, this time in the south of France, near to the village of Villelongue-dels-Monts where we plan to stay from Apr 16 to May 15. We hear it is a big house ... anyone want to join us?