Profile: Carol Duval

About This Author

My husband and I met travelling in the ‘70s when he was on leave from the US Air Force and I was on leave from teaching in Australia. While waiting on the train platform in Copenhagen for the train to Oslo, we started chatting and have been together ever since. We’ve now lived and worked in many places throughout Asia, Australia, the UK and the US but we’re forever torn, trying to decide where we’d be happiest. How to choose between enjoying a Sunday roast in a medieval pub or a barbecue on sunny Sydney Harbour? And the US continues to fascinate with its troubling tribal politics alongside its magnetic energy. But although we’ve now (kind of) settled in Australia, we still try to return to the UK every 18 months or so, which is an expensive proposition. Hence, our experiment with house swapping and sitting, which has turned out not only to be a cost-effective but also far more entertaining and thought-provoking than we’d ever anticipated. We’ve looked after endearing and not-so endearing pets; stayed in everything from picturesque cottages to crumbling chateaux; pulled weeds and battled with cumbersome cookers; and discovered the darkness and kindness in human hearts. My hope is to share with readers some of my experiences and bring a smile to their faces while also posing questions about how we might best live together on this wonderful planet.