I came late to a love of travel. A combination of early marriage, child rearing and a focus on my own front yard were to blame for the delay. But I recovered from all three and started to focus on the horizon instead. Being well into my 50s, I knew my chances of ticking off all the usual tourist destinations were slim. And, for me, there was only one other horizon I absolutely had to see for myself. It belonged to a country with a cuisine, culture and history I knew better than that of my own: one whose language I had studied for nine years but had never spoken on its soil. In 2015 my long-distance love affair with France was finally consummated.
Liberated at last from – and with the encouragement of – my children, who clearly wanted me out of the country, I joined a house- and animal-minding website. I then went about trying to sell my animal husbandry skills – at the time non-existent – to potential hosts.