We are a professional female couple who love DIY, gardening, eco projects and adventure. Caroline grew up on an estate in rural Australia, Fiona is from just outside Hull, and after running our business from our home in central London for 4 years we have now escaped the city to become live-in caretakers at a gorgeous château in Pays de la Loire, France (found on this site).
About us
Fiona is a CEO and Non-Exec Director with an early career in high-street retail, while Caroline is a digital user experience designer, with a previous degree in Hotel Management from AIHS/Cornell University and five-star hotel experience.
We bring an array of practical skills to our house-sitting assignments including (but not limited to) DIY and basic repair, organic vegetable garden design and implementation, plant care, lawn reseeding, pool maintenance, small engine maintenance, mowing, ivy removal, woodland management (coppicing, hedgelaying), use of tools and equipment, along with general maintenance and a desire to leave things better than we found them - and probably a touch of OCD, in a good way!
When in the UK we enjoy volunteering with the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust to help manage woodlands. This is what sparked our interest in coppicing, hedgelaying, hedgehog ecology, and permaculture.
In our current caretaker role (which has included navigating Covid-19 lockdown within France) we've been adding environmentally friendly solutions such as planting native edible pollinators to encourage bees, starting a compost, building bird boxes and hedgehog hotels, using our wildlife camera to uncover all sorts of animals and night-time activity in the garden, and making use of plants growing on the property to make Elderflower Gin and Cherry Clafoutis - it's a tough life!
We communicate regularly with the property owners who are based in the UK full-time. It's always a pleasure to send them photos and let them know how everything is going.
Our skills and approach:
- Mature but fun natured, happy to socialise but also discrete
- Hard working, responsible, positive energy, fast learners
- Troubleshooting and problem-solving
- Security conscious and discrete
- Caring for animals (great with rabbits, dogs, horses, sheep etc)
- Very practical and good with general maintenance/DIY
- Confident using and maintaining garden and DIY equipment such as ride-on lawnmowers, tractors, trailers, quad bikes, chainsaws, billhooks and power tools
- Able to maintain swimming pools and gardens
- Make our own organic insect sprays to help manage leafminer, aphids, and other beasties
- Painting and decorating, put up shelving, curtain rails, lay wooden floors, tile small areas
- Understand fundamentals of plumbing and electrics with ability to diagnose problems and engineer temporary fixes
Both of us are native English speakers, Fiona speaks basic French.
We have our own vehicles, and both hold full UK car and motorcycle licences.
We are social drinkers and non-smokers.
References attached and CRB checks can be provided.
House-sitting experience
Repeat house-sits in three large properties in North Lincolnshire, UK. One with an attached retreat, and the other a large property with an orchard, chickens, sheep, dogs and a horse.
Each year we spend six weeks managing a 12 acre estate in country Australia,
Last year we looked after a beautiful home with gardens in Notting Hill, London, when the occupants spent six weeks aboard.
We are currently looking after a Château and grounds in Pays de la Loire, France.
We've also completed a two week project getting a gorgeous manoir in Gascony ready for paying guests, and recently helped the owner of a large château in the Dordogne valley prepare her property for sale.
What we're looking for
With a love of France and a desire to make a positive environmental impact we are beginning to connect with property owners who have house-sitting opportunities and projects that match well with our skills and ethos. Ideally we would arrange to speak on the phone or meet for a coffee (at a safe distance) with a view to confirming availability once all parties are comfortable the Covid-19 situation.
We're ridiculously tidy, super organised, multi-skilled, easy-going and adaptable. We look forward to helping you with your home and gardens with the same respect, care and diligence we apply to our own properties.
Rester en sécurité et en bonne santé,
Caroline and Fiona