House sitting, has so many advantages, and our recent stay in the lovely city of Oundle showcased them all perfectly. Of course, there is the advantage of costs savings since you are not paying for a hotel or Airbnb. This means that in many cases you may be able to spend extended periods of time in areas that you may not normally have been able to afford. But on top of this obvious advantages you also may find:
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- Finding new places: I can honestly say that we would have never found the lovely town of Oundle had it not
been for the invitation from Lance and Adrian (Ady) to come look after their home and pets while they visited family in Canada. Lance is a landscape designer, so you can imagine how amazing the gardens around the house were. Adrian is a retired flight attendant with lots of great stories about his travels. They have a dog named Georgie and a cat named Alfie who are both amazing and full of personality. - Living like a local: when you are in a hotel you don’t typically get to
enjoy things like grocery shopping (which is unique in every country). Oundle is a small town that sports 3 grocery stores, two butchers and a handful of pubs. By the time we left, George was on a first name basis with the butcher and while he was getting a hair cut the barber said, “so I understand you are house sitting for Lance and Ady”. Such is life in a very small town. - Meeting new friends: in Oundle, we were lucky enough to meet the gang, a
group of friends who pal around, share dinners, support each other in ride sharing and projects and just enjoy each other’s company in general. While we were no substitute for Lance and Ady, we certainly had fun hanging out with their friends.
- Finding new places: I can honestly say that we would have never found the lovely town of Oundle had it not
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One great thing about Oundle is the myriad of public walking trails. 
Many of these are created in cooperation with local farmers. This allows you to take long walks through fields and along the river. You can never tell if you will be in the 
middle of a heard of cows (or sheep) or walking down a country road.
One thing we both enjoyed during the walk was watching the progress of the river boats as they worked their way through the locks on the river. The process was interesting!
Four weeks flew by, Lance and Ady came back from Canada and were nice enough to invite us to spend an extra night visiting with them. We shared some nice meals and then it was time to say goodbye to Oundle and head off to Germany…