Summer sits in Brighton
This blog post was originally published on the 17th July 2018.
Over our travels we’ve had various opportunities to return to Brighton, where we lived for a year in 2017, to housesit for friends or pet owners via Trusted Housesitters. We make a big effort to stay in touch with friends while we’re away, but it’s always great to meet face to face and catch up properly when we can! Each time we’ve come back to Brighton and Hove we’ve stayed somewhere new, which has given us the chance to see more of the city!
On our first trip back down to Brighton in April we spent a week in Hollingdean, an area at the top of a hill which provided a gentle sloping walk into Brighton centre. Our companion for the stay was Noo – a gorgeous black cat who was a bit shy when we first arrived, but after a day curled up in bed he came downstairs to suss us out and enjoy some strokes and games! Noo loved chasing feathers on sticks and running to catch cat treats we would throw for him, though most of the time he was very independent. Over our time in Hollingdean Noo would spend most of the daytime outdoors, returning in the evenings to eat and curl up with us, so we had a lot of free time to walk into Brighton during the day and enjoy shopping or seeing friends. We enjoyed our time in Hollingdean with the freedom to come and go as we pleased, but we always looked forward to our snuggles with Noo in the evenings!
Our second trip back to the coast took us to Hove, where we spent ten days looking after beautiful Boo – a stunning white cat with one yellow and one blue eye. Boo, like Noo, was quite independent and more than happy to come and go as she pleased! We had a lot of May sunshine during our time in Hove, and Boo would spend hours sunning herself on the back patio. One afternoon when she came back into the house we discovered she’d been having fun rolling around in the brick dust from next door’s building work, as she was now an ombré peach colour! While Boo occupied herself as she pleased day to day we managed to visit lots of local events and attractions, like the Foodies Festival beside Hove beach, and Drusillas Park in Alfriston where we saw a variety of animals such as lemurs, bats and flamingos! We loved coming home and playing games with Boo in the evenings, or watching her randomly zoom from room to room! At night she would come and curl up on the end of our bed, and in the morning we’d wake up to her pawing us for cuddles. We were sad to say goodbye to her!
For our most recent journey to Brighton in June, we stayed in a flat near Preston Park to look after Jyoti and Milai – two dogs we originally met last year when using Borrow My Doggy, which would eventually lead to us starting our housesitting adventurs! These two tiny terriers are so full of love and we like to think they enjoyed catching up with us as much as we did with them! We had ten days of glorious sunshine which both dogs loved – they would sun themselves on the balcony at home or lie down in the grass in Preston Park to soak up the rays. As we’ve looked after Jyoti and Milai many times and know how well behaved they are, we were confident taking them with us wherever we went and spent lots of lovely days people-watching outside cafes, or having a refreshing drink at the pub with them happily curled up on our laps. We also spent a morning waking the dogs at Hollingbury golf course with our next door neighbour and her sweet dog Poppy, who knew Jyoti and Milai well! As the golf course is quite far up a hill you can see right over Brighton – early morning was definitely a beautiful time to go as it was so peaceful and still! On more relaxed days we would all snuggle up on the sofa, one dog each, as they slept on our laps and we watched tv together.
We love being back in Brighton as it’s a place very close to our hearts. We both have lots of friends in the area and it’s always fun catching up with them after being away. It was also nice to slot back into our old lifestyle and visit some of the places we used to love going to! A couple of our favourite food places are The Pond, where they serve the best bao buns, and Happy Maki, a cute, modern place that makes delicious vegan sushi rolls. We also loved sitting in the sun on the grass outside Brighton Pavilion and listening to local buskers, or relaxing on the pebble beach and cooling off with the refreshing, salty spray of the sea! We already have another Brighton sit with Jyoti and Milai booked in for August, and we’re already looking forward to seeing them again!
