Trading Places? Exploring home exchanges

A headline in last week’s Toronto Star read, “EVERYONE I KNOW IS BLUE. EVERYONE.” It sounded a bit extreme, but it’s probably a fair assessment. One line that hit home for me referred to “a tendency to states of longing, poignancy and sorrow, an acute awareness of the passing of time…the recognition that light and dark, birth and death – bitter and sweet – are forever paired.” You can’t put your life on hold and wait for the bad stuff to end, because sometimes it just keeps coming. We have to learn to appreciate the joyful moments even when they come during times of despair. It was a good reminder that feeling meh or blah or experiencing a sense of grief after the last couple of years, is a pretty normal reaction.

I struggle with the grey days of March and April. I prefer cold and sunny to grey and drizzly, which doesn’t help explain why I’ve chosen to live Sweden and England in the past, where it’s grey and overcast much of the time. I used to think that if I wrote my autobiography I’d call it Shades of Grey. Then someone stole my title.

To distract ourselves from the dreary weather, Ray and I joined a home exchange site (like in the movie The Holiday where Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet’s characters exchange homes). We’ve already found interesting opportunities within easy driving distance where we can bring Juno along, have a change of scenery, and explore a new area. All at no cost to us! There’s an annual fee, but you can create a profile, view the opportunities and send messages, before you commit. You don’t pay until you finalize an exchange.

The challenge, of course, is that people who live in cold places want to exchange houses with people who live in warm places. And, unless you live near a ski resort, or in a city like New York, chances are no one who lives in Palm Springs or the south of Spain wants to be in your house in November through March either.

We were very surprised that, just a few days after we’d joined the site, we had a request to exchange with a house in the French Alps for three weeks in August. It was definitely tempting but we turned it down. Ray’s still not entirely comfortable with the idea of air travel and, if we are going to travel overseas, we’d prefer to visit our friends in England, who we haven’t seen in over three years now.

We also got a request from someone in the eastern townships in Quebec, which looked interesting, but they were interested in a guest point exchange. You can either do a reciprocal exchange or you can use guest points. You earn guest points when you sign up, or if you get other people to sign up, or by having people stay at your home while you’re away. For example, if you have a cottage, you could let people stay at your cottage and pay with guest points and then you can [try to] use those guest points to stay somewhere warm when it’s cold.

[If you decide to set up a profile, you can use my code and we probably both get extra guest points or something. My code is: carolyn-960c0 (https://www.homeexchange.com/).]

We also re-activated our pet sitting profile. It’s trickier now as we’d need to find someone to look after Juno while we travel, but we can also use the site to find pet sitters. According to the site’s discussion forum, there’s currently a shortage of sitters and a glut of people looking to travel.

[If you decide to sign up, you can use my link and you get a 25% discount off your membership. https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/refer/RAF196235/?utm_medium=refer-a-friend&utm_campaign=refer-a-friend&utm_source=copy-link%5D

Browsing the sites is a better time-waster than doom-scrolling social media and you get to snoop in other people’s houses and dream about exploring new places. That’s mostly how I’ve been occupying my time lately. Ray’s been working around the yard and getting out on his new bike when the weather allows it.

Nick’s started ‘lead climbing’ at the gym in Kingston (where he spends much of his free time). With top rope climbing, which he’d previously been doing, the rope is anchored to the top of the wall. With lead climbing, you’re attaching the rope to a carabiner on the wall as you go, so that your body is generally above the place where the rope is anchored (clip, climb, clip). If you fall, you fall further and with more force than you would with the top rope.

Nick, Megan and…a chunk of ginger? I didn’t ask. I may be out of touch with current trends.

Juno and I have returned to agility training and are making slow progress. Mastering agility has more to do with the handler than the dog, and I still have a long way to go. I did a face plant this week because I’m still learning how to run forward while looking backward.

My friend Sarah and I took her daughter April to a fun indoor amusement centre for the day.

Definitely looking forward to this corner everyone keeps talking about, around which spring will appear.