Moo. Gin. Hmmm. The sound a cow makes and the perfect accompaniment to tonic water? Absolutely. Also the cutest cats in Neutral Bay. We asked them and they confirmed it immediately. Someone once asked us with regard to our housesitting caper/lifestyle, 'so, you've fed the dog - now what do you do with your day?'. What a serious lack of imagination that person displayed. We're in a new suburb (or in the past... a new country) and there are supermarkets to explore, the high street to walk down and in Neutral Bay at least, 5 different op shops to venture into (and 2 very posh consignment stores... though even at consignment prices, a bit out of our price range). We also spent our week in Neutral Bay working hard.

Work? We know... a nasty four letter word. In this instance however it was hugely productive and beneficial to us. We both opened Didi accounts so had essentially a free ride in both directions - which meant we could bring our current project with us and devote a good 6 hours a day to scanning our photos, emptying our albums and editing, sorting and e-albuming (assuming that's a thing). We are eternally grateful to the clever folks at Google who came up with the Photoscan app which has made doing our photos phenomenally easy - the digital versions are even better than many of the originals as we can enhance, fix crappy exposures, crop and generally make them better. Between us we had many decades of memories and half the fun was looking at photos we hadn't looked at in at least the last 20 years. Wow.

We played with the cats - their favourite game was dinner funnily enough. We found James some brand new and genuine Birkenstocks for only $15 at the Red Cross thrift store (the very same model that retail for $150). I found a vintage atomic starburst brooch for my collection and, most importantly, we found a local seafood / fish and chip shop that was keen for business - a free drink for every dine in customer. Suffice to say we had fish & chips there one night and returned on our final night for their grilled seafood platter which was a) not expensive at all and b) delicious. Yes. We can be bought. The IPA on tap was perfect for the season - delicately flavoured, crisp and refreshing and free - which improved the taste even more.

The end of the week came all too soon just as the cats were becoming very affectionate. We missed them the minute we walked out the door but it was a great week, we made huge process on the photos and managed to leave the apartment with significantly lighter bags than we arrived with - given how many photos and albums we'd disposed of. All good - now back to the ranch for more unpacking, sorting, turfing and planning of future housesitting adventures.