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Crakehall

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    • TravelerBig Adventure
      1
      Day 716

      Bedale

      May 9, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

      We enjoyed the many programs on TV which remembered the generation of people who served in the second world war and the programmes celebrating the 75th anniversary of VE day.
      Bread making and sewing continued alongside our daily walks or cycle rides. On VE (75) day we cycled through to Catterick Village to the north of us in bright sunshine, passing by the deer park at Hunton, fields full of rape seed in full bloom and horse racing stables. Catterick village was full of people celebrating in their gardens with family and across the hedge with neighbours. The union flag was out in abundance. Catterick village lies a couple of miles to the east of the Catterick Garrison which is major army establishment, and home to the Green Jackets, so we imagine the village also hosts many ex servicemen and women. Everyone was in good spirits under the glorious sunshine and 1940s music was being played over many sound systems.Read more

    • TravelerBig Adventure
      Day 712

      Bedale

      May 5, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

      Another dry week here - the predicted rain for last week came to nothing - rain clouds passed us by. We continued with our routines, although the temperature drop mid week curtailed the external fitness regimes and yoga. Will get back to that when temperatures improve.
      We walked and cycled hereabouts, increasing our walk to 6.5 miles by combining two of the shorter routes. Karen toughed out the full ride to Leyburn along the country lanes as her cycling legs are getting stronger.
      We continued the zoom meetings with Karen's family in Redcar and Coventry - this week we were joined by Alex in Hong Kong, which was great, and his pub quiz very entertaining -Donald is hoping for a few football related questions for next week. We also enjoyed a meeting with Alan's old school friends - thanks to Dave for initiating that and to Sue for hosting the meeting - it was good to catch up with everyone again. We have since found that our telephone connection is better than our wifi for the zoom meetings, which makes for a smoother conversation. We enjoyed a zoom meeting with the Maclean family which was great - we will endeavour to find a way to get GGMac onto zoom if we can get past the forgotten Apple passwords.
      Karen has downloaded scrabble to the iphone/ipad and has enjoyed a game with Kirsty.
      Friday fizz drinkies with Syd and Jo on whatsapp always a joy.
      Whatsapp maths lessons continue to London and Brisbane, which is a wonderful way for us to connect with our grandchildren.
      We ventured into Bedale during the week to relieve the "Weighs" shop of some flour and yeast etc.. Alan has produced his first ever loaf. A triumph generally although in typical bloke like manner read the recipe fully once the loaf was in the oven. The last bit of instruction was to advise that the recipe above was wrong and the amount of salt to be used should actually be 50% less than printed. The loaf was good if a little salty and our blood pressures have probably raised a few notches.
      We send our love today to the Quick family on the very sad day of the funeral of Johnny, and wish to re-express our wish to meet with them all as soon as we are able - hopefully in much happier times.      Read more

    • TravelerBig Adventure
      Day 704

      Bedale

      April 27, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

      The weather has continued to be kind to us although the farmers here are all doing rain dances. We have watched them, over the last five weeks plough, till and seed their fields and these spring crops are just beginning to show themselves. The winter crop fields are all very dry with cracks appearing in the top soil of many of the fields.. One or two of the fields are showing autumnal colours it has been so dry.
      One of the Ash trees we have been walking past on a regular basis has come into flower and is now coming into leaf.
      There has been some wholesome smells as the farmers spray their pastures with farm slurry - rain is needed to disperse the goodness into the soil.
      The field in front of us has about 80 ewes each with either one or more often two lambs. We have been watching the field fill up daily by the addition of one or two new families brought in from the lambing sheds. Apparently the farmer has only two ewes left which are due to lamb this week.
      On Sunday A dusted off his road bike for the first outing on it since last May in Scotland. It was most enjoyable on the A684 as the road was so quiet - 45 minutes uphill and against the wind to Leyburn and 25 minutes back followed by a quick trip into Bedale and a look around the lanes immediately surrounding us.
      K spent the morning planning maths lessons for the week ahead and did some sewing with the machine. She produced some face masks for friends in Chandlers Ford.      Read more

    • TravelerBig Adventure
      Day 700

      Bedale

      April 23, 2020 in England ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

      Day 700 of our retirement adventure, which happened to coincide with Alan's birthday.
      The maths lesson to Australia had a theme around the number 63 (Alan's age today).
      Another simple day in the countryside. We took our exercise on our bikes and cycled through the country lanes towards Leyburn - spring lambs bounding within the fields around us. Only the second bike ride for a long time, so was a bit of a challenge at times - but we will get stronger!!!
      Celebrated the birthday with one of K's home made chicken and mushroom pies - a request from birthday boy - and a bottle of fizz.      Read more

    • TravelerBig Adventure
      11
      Day 699

      Bedale

      April 22, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

      Another week has gone by in this lovely part of the world, and the weather has been kind to us. Karen has been able to do some yoga outside following a Zoom class by Daphne with 34 others, and we have been able to continue our daily exercise in the countryside immediately around us. The lambs in the field are lively and offer some further entertainment.
      We travelled off site to Ripon early on Wednesday to relieve Morrisons of four weeks worth of food, and also used the occasion to top up our autogas tanks - at the same time having a friendly chat with the policeman who flagged us down on the A168. He was happy with our circumstances, and advised that his dad was looking to buy a motorhome too.
      We ventured out on our bikes for the first time this year and aim to gradually build up our stamina for longer rides once the current crisis has subsided. Alan has his sights on the buttertubs crossing between Wensleydale and Swaledale as a gauge for his cycling fitness. (A 100k round trip through the lovely valleys of Yorkshire)
      School lessons (maths) are going well with Mrs Maclean and the girls in Brisbane and Magnus in London. Everyone seems to be enjoying the experience and A is impressed with what the youngsters can do.
      We have had very little rain here since we arrived, which was made evident on our walk the other day when we were surprised to see a farmer irrigating his fields - in April - most unusual.      Read more

    • TravelerBig Adventure
      Day 690

      Bedale

      April 13, 2020 in England ⋅ ☁️ 6 °C

      After a bitterly cold Easter Monday the sun has come out again and we are enjoying warm weather again. We are now starting week 4 of lockdown here in North Yorkshire. Like most people we find we have established some sort of routine to pass the days. We usually stay in bed for an hour or so each morning, reading our books and catching up with emails, Facebook and the news on our iPads. After breakfast A makes sure waste water from the van is emptied out and refills the fresh water tank. K delivers maths lessons to Brisbane and Walthamstow via video links. All going very well with all 3 grandchildren taking it all very seriously. Magnus even wears his school uniform for his lessons!! Both of us do some form of exercise each day - A does his exercises (press ups, sit ups, lunges etc) outside and K either does yoga or Joe Wicks workout outside too. After lunch each day we venture out for our walk in the countryside - we really appreciate all that nature has to offer at this time of year. Then it's back to the van to play scrabble, do cryptic crosswords or read. K also fits in some sewing most days.
      We have started doing an alternative walk which takes us across fields from Crakehall where our site is to Newton- Le-Willows to the west of us. Crakehall by the river is beautiful in the spring sunshine.      Read more

    • TravelerBig Adventure
      Day 679

      Bedale

      April 2, 2020 in England ⋅ 🌬 12 °C

      We have just about finished our 14 day complete isolation after our return from Australia.
      We are in a lovely part of the country, and we are enjoying ourselves and keeping ourselves busy.
      Karen is tutoring our grand children, Magnus, Sophie and Samantha in maths - the wonders of whatsapp and facetime. Magnus gets a 30 minute maths lesson every day and the girls in Australia on Tuesday and Thursday. It is great to be able to keep in touch with them all in this manner.
      We have a 5 mile walk in the countryside which we complete every afternoon, barely coming across any other people. After tomorrow we may have a look into Bedale village but we intend to keep away from it all, on our site here, for the duration.
      Today we return briefly to Redcar where Nicola has done a shop for us and where she has picked up K's prescription. Good to have a keyworker in the family at this time. Nicola and family have been very helpful for which we are very grateful.      Read more

    • TravelerBig Adventure
      Day 669

      Bedale, north Yorkshire

      March 23, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 10 °C

      We travelled north on Monday, as we thought we might try and lose ourselves in the Yorkshire countryside. Before doing so we had arranged to meet briefly with Nicola and Claire, Karen's sister and our niece who had completed a big shop for us in Redcar. Massive thanks to Nicola and Claire for their assistance. After a distance handover, at a car park in Redcar by the beach, we stopped by Karen's parents house to have a quick conversation through the porch glazing. We were heartened to see they were both in good spirits and keeping themselves safely out of harms way.
      On the way up to Redcar the rumour of a complete lockdown was circulating, so we decided to ditch our plan to stay on the stray in favour of a Certificated Site we had arranged to stay on at Little Crakehall near Bedale in the Vale of York to complete our self isolation. We moved quickly onto Bedale arriving in early evening.
      As it turns out this site may be our home for some time and we could not have picked a better one. Stella our host is very helpful and friendly, and we are surrounded by fields. We have power, water, waste facilities and, due to the situation, when we finish our isolation next week we will have exclusive use of the facilities block which is pristine. Stella has closed the site to all others during this period .
      The site is based on a farm, we overlook a large field holding a large flock of sheep, Swaledales (possibly we are no experts) and Herdwick (deffo we have been told) which Stella tells us are due for lambing very soon.
      We have access to a few local footpaths for country walking and will explore more after our two weeks are up. We have, however, completed the same walk on each of the last three days and come across only a few other walkers - all cheery and mindful of keeping a safe distance when we pass by. It has been nice to see young families out with mum and dad together.
      The farm has free range chickens and sells eggs in a hut along their entrance lane, which we will be trying. The farm also has a number of pigs which all look exceedingly happy with their current lot. One of my photos shows just how happy a pig can be.
      When we are not exercising on our walks Karen has her sewing to keep herself occupied and I am currently making an effort to get to grips with the drone. We have the telegraph crossword to download daily - we are still 2 months behind but catching up - and we will start a weekly scrabble tournament to keep ourselves occupied. Karen is quietly confident i'm sure - in Australia after going 8-nil down she ended up thrashing me by a clear six games. There is a library swap for books on site so we will be able to wade through a load of literature we otherwise might not have contemplated reading.      Read more

    • TravelerBig Adventure
      Day 750

      Bedale

      June 12, 2020 in England ⋅ 🌧 11 °C

      A rather wet and much colder week saw us have limited excursions away from our van.
      Tuesday was forecast to be dry so we arranged to travel over to Redcar to celebrate Donald's 89th birthday. We spent two hours social distanced in the rear garden, the first hour in sunshine but when the clouds came over the temperature dropped quite sharply for the second hour. Donald had clearly been very busy in the garden over the last 12 weeks as it was looking splendid. We returned via Morrisons in Ripon for the big shop
      The rest of the week was very wet but we managed to get out for our walks on Wednesday and Thursday.
      Friday wet all day. We spent some time organising our movements for the expected opening up of campsites in July. We have made a plan to go south when we leave here.      Read more

    • TravelerBig Adventure
      Day 757

      Bedale

      June 19, 2020 in England ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

      The weather has been a mixed bag this last week but generally better than the previous one. We saw some sunshine on Saturday and enjoyed a bbq on site after a walk in the country side - ending up in Bedale where we purchased the Saturday paper.
      On Sunday we cycled into Richmond, arriving just in time to see a load of police activity and youngsters carrying banners for a BML demonstration. It was not what we were expecting when we set off. The market square was full of demonstrators and onlookers - we kept our social distance by passing the demo to drop down into the valley below the castle. Crossing the bridge over the River Swale we enjoyed a nice walk along the valley by the river before climbing up the valley sides to return to Richmond at high level.A beautiful walk in stunning countryside. On our return the demo had dissipated with no signs of there having been any problem.
      We confined our exercise to walks near the site until Wednesday, when we ventured out in the van to Northallerton - filling up with Autogas on the way. Karen had arranged to visit a sewing shop in Northallerton prior to meeting Donald and Margaret at the open market there. Nicola and Claire joined us later and we all returned to the site for a socially distanced afternoon tea.
      Thursday was wet most of the day so we stayed on site, then on Friday we cycled to Leyburn to post a birthday present to Jemima who is two next week. We got a little wet as we cycled through low cloud but made it back before the heavens opened in the afternoon.
      We have informed Stella (the campsite owner) of our intention to move on from this site on July 13th, as long as campsites are once again open by then. It will feel strange to leave our little haven here - we will have been here for 16 weeks by the time we go. We are so pleased that we found such a beautiful spot to spend the lockdown period, and are very grateful to Stella and Steve for their support and help and friendliness during this difficult time. This is a campsite we will return to again and again, as it has everything we require and is in a beautiful part of the country.      Read more

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    Crakehall

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