Gerard and I have been a couple for 36 years now, living together, not married and having no children, but surrounded by many friends and beloved family. Gerard was born and raised in The Netherlands and I was born in Sweden and raised in The Netherlands. We love to travel, meet people and enjoy new adventures. We have also done home exchange for a while, which is also great, although the cleaning beforehand and you are in a hurry preparing for the holiday and finishing work is sometimes a bit much.

We also have been enjoying Airbnb as a host renting out our home and more as travellers. Gerard works as a material manager. I am a love coach for people interested in long-term love relationships from a place of freedom and mutual respect (monogamy to polyamory and LHBTQIA+ friendly).

I grew up with a dog (probably a mixture of different breeds, a kind of labrador) and we had cats in the past. Because of our busy work/business schedule and love for travelling, we choose in the interest of animals, not to have any pets at the moment.
We have a life dream of when we are much older and more being at home, to have many animals in our home.

It was such a pleasure to discover something like TrustedHousesitters. I couldn’t almost believe that it was possible, to travel, to enjoy the company of animals and to travel and see new villages and meet people from all kinds of backgrounds.

We have had two house sits now and it was such a beautiful experience, we had great talks with people from Sweden and United Kingdom. It was also beautiful to discover how to connect with pets which have all their character and pace in accepting you as the new person to connect and cuddle with. Sometimes it was a bit hard the first days to notice that the cats were waiting at the stairs for their ‘real pet carers’ to come home. It took some days to get used to each other.

We are looking forward to meeting other members of TrustedHousesitters and taking care of animals for which we in our normal daily hassle, don’t have any time.

Kind regards,
Christine & Gerard