Help a multicultural Hobartian family in Tasmania.

Location: Hobart, Australia

STOP THE PRESSES: The weeds are winning. Any help appreciated maintaining this garden.

We live in an inner Hobartian suburb (3-4km from the CBD) on a 1/4 acre block in a 1930s weather board ex-farmhouse (now suburban dream house ;-). On top of work and raising a daughter and son, I'm trying to maintain a garden and house and can always use help.

We are four: Bernd and Dani, with children Gypsy Anna (2003) and Leon (2013)

There's a spare bike or two for getting around, a few bus routes nearby and it's not a long walk into town or the North Hobart cafe strip.

I'm a seasoned traveller, ardent hitch-hiker and run a local games society. I speak Esperanto, German and some French. Dani speaks English and Serbian. My daughter (1/6/2003) Gypsy Anna can yabber away in English and keep you well entertained and Leon can only coo and cah so far ...

Gypsy Anna is with me only half the time as her mother chose a path of destruction and abandoned the family dreams we pursued for 5 years ... but Leon is a full time fixture.

Helpers with experience, skills and/or enthusiasm are especially welcome as are winter arrivals.

Previous helpers have been involved in projects as diverse as gardening, landscaping, construction, stone-walling, painting, electrical wiring, sewing, cleaning, cooking and child care.

Accommodation for up to 2 people in a small renovated studio behind our house, or in a spare room in the house.

Children are very welcome. Meals to suit (we eat a lot of vegetarian but not exclusively) .

No Smoking please.

Please be aware that you will be living within a small family. If you call and plan to come please be considerate of the arrangements we are making for you and let us know as soon as possible if you change your plans.

I work a 4 day week in town as a sales manager in IT and so you will need to feel comfortable with being on your own much of the time, but we'll be sharing breakfast and dinner times and much of the leisure and work time outside of my day job commitments.

Live Projects as at October 2013:

o Gardening (weeding and pruning)
o Landscaping/playground construction work
o Electric wiring
o Fence work
o Painting
o General yard maintenance

And of course cooking, cleaning and childcare are ongoing projects.

Convenient PDF files on how to get here and how to get around are on our website that may they be of use to you.

Interested? Well, we've had many many helpers over the years, been hosting since 2004, and I can honestly say, some fell in love, some stayed as long as three months I think in the extreme so far, and others, came and went, it wasn't their scene here. In short we're flexible, you can come, stay as long as you like and it's working for all of us, and you can go when you like too, all we ask is that approach this maturely, discuss with us you plans, and don't either just disappear one day (that's happened too often) or expect to stay endlessly. We won't ask you to move on without a friendly (and I mean friendly) talk, and we appreciate your not changing your plans on us without one too. It impacts our social planning, our shopping and more, for us to know who is around in our house.

NOTE: I want to reiterate how much we love and prioritize longer term visits. We regularly have guests for many weeks, and will always reserve space for such requests over requests to come for a few days. There is is simply a lot of overhead into getting to know one another, the culture of the house and rhythm of life and so on and the stability of a handful of quality summer guests is far far preferable to a summer of dozens of passing through tourists. So if you want a home base in Hobart a while then you'll get priority, please book, and if you're wanting to stay a few days, drop a line shortly before but don't expect positive results. I may be full already and long in advance will not want to take a booking for less than a week.