‘In a moment of madness, we sold our house and everything changed’

A horse-riding accident left Vicky Hallam, 40, wanting a different life.

‘Iwoke at 7am, the time I’d always got up for work. But instead of getting up, I settled back under the covers alongside my partner, Alan. I could feel the warmth of the sun on my face, peeking through the blinds. It was a beautiful day and we were finally going to be able to enjoy it.

Two years earlier, I’d been in a terrible horse-riding accident and was barely able to move. When I’d finally gone back to work at the cleaning company I ran, I’d been in constant pain. Alan tried to help but he worked long hours running a car-repair business. One day, I looked around our recently renovated home in Bradford and thought “is this it?” Was it worth working to exhaustion just to sit in this house? Once the thought took hold, I couldn’t shake it off and a new one started to blossom: what if we gave it all up and started again? Between us, Alan and I hatched a plan: we’d leave our jobs, sell the house and tour the UK in a caravan for a year.

GOING ON TOUR

In a moment of madness, we put the house on the market and it sold within a week. Everything happened so

quickly: we ended up collecting our caravan the same day the house sold and our old life disappeared. Although my parents were supportive, others told us we were crazy. But I was determined. I’d heard about a house-sitting website, where users look after other people’s homes when they’re away, and created an account. We moved into the caravan and had started touring from Derbyshire down to Plymouth when a B&B owner in Bath asked if we could house-sit her business for her. With my background in cleaning, I managed the guest rooms, while Alan, an accomplished handyman, completed odd building jobs. We soon realised we could offer a great service for house-sitting clients, and it would allow us to travel, too. Alan and I set up a website advertising our services and, two years on, we’ve been everywhere from Devon to Edinburgh and Somerset to Bakewell. Before, our days whizzed by in a flurry of stress, but now we organise our own schedule. We can walk along the Cornish coastline one week and spot deer in the Scottish highlands the next. We also run a static caravan holiday let in Cornwall, which provides a back-up base between our house-sitting bookings. The biggest change, though, is in ourselves: my back is a lot better now and we are both much calmer.’ • safehandshousesitters.com

‘The biggest change is that we are both much calmer’