House-sitting

Ahoy hoy!
So this week, Will and I are house-sitting for our old choirmaster (who is visiting his daughter in Australia) in his beautiful (and rather large) house in Fenham! Here are some of my favourite things about staying here...

• The house is so big that we can both shout a lot and it doesn't matter! (strangely enough, living in a small flat with grumpy neighbors really instills a need to shout sometimes)
• The garden is beautiful
• We feed wild birds and then watch them from the kitchen :)
• There are 86 framed pictures on the walls around the house (yes, I counted)
• There are HUNDREDS of books
• They have about 15 monopoly boards from different countries including anti-monopoly: anti-monopolists vs. the capitalists 

So basically it's the sort of house I want to live in when I'm all grown up - all intellectually stimulating and creative and slightly eccentric. Not to mention the bus into uni only takes 5 minutes. Starting back at uni tomorrow - not really looking forward to the two class presentations we have in the first week, or the exam we have in the second week, but other than that it should be fine...
House-sitting is an interesting prospect - in my experience, people who want house-sitters tend to have really nice houses! Will and I did some house-sitting while we were traveling around Australia a few years ago, but it was rather a different game there. We got to feed chickens (or "chooks" in oz) and eat all their eggs, which I loved. I wish I could have chickens! (Although in central Newcastle, I don't think they'd be very happy)
So we're here 'til the end of the week, planning on playing some board games (maybe even anti-monopoly) and jaunting about in the garden :)