Camping on the North Wales coast - Llandanwg and Harlech

View from Llandanwg beach 

I vaguely remember going to Anglesey for a week with a schoolfriend some thirty years ago otherwise I don't think I have explored North Wales before now. It's beautiful!

We booked in for four nights at a Camping And Caravanning Club certified site in the tiny village of Llandanwg, about two kilometres from Harlech. Ymwlch Farm campsite is essentially a neat stonewalled field with electric hookups and several water taps. There are a pair of toilets off to one side and the possibility to take showers at the nearby farmhouse. A 'shock horror' moment revealed there was absolutely no phone or portable wifi signal there so I had the bizarre experience of being almost internet free for several days! I say almost because there was a good signal about a hundred yards away on the beach. The campsite was £16 per night including electricity. Showers are 50p extra each. There is a fairly tight turn off the road and I was glad we only had our trailer tent on tow although larger caravans than Bailey were in the field so it probably would have been fine!

View from Llandanwg beach 

Ymwlch Farm's great advantages are its proximity to a wide sandy beach and to the historic town of Harlech with its interesting shops and cafes and the partially restored castle. There is good walking country hereabouts too, but unfortunately Dave came down with a nasty cold for a few days so we will need to return and walk! We did manage an hour or so strolling towards a small harbour and back around on our first evening. The views were stunning and these photos really don't do them justice!

We visited Harlech Castle the next day. Edward I had its construction started in 1283, one of a number of structures he commissioned, and it was virtually completed by 1289 which is apparently fast by large-stone-castle standards. I learned that 950 men worked on the build at the busiest time and, like all grand designs, it went rather over budget although at just over £8000 was still Edward's cheapest castle! By the early 1400s Harlech Castle was occupied by Owain Glyndwr (whose name we last encountered I think in Llandovery) and the famous anthemic Men Of Harlech song was written about the siege of Harlech Castle during the Wars Of The Roses.

View across to a harbour
near Llandanwg 

Entry to the castle these days is by way of a ticket office with attached gift shop and cafe. Once inside there are a number of informative poster boards and I especially liked two small models of the castle. Towers and walls have been restored so it is possible to climb (too many!) spiral steps and get long views over Harlech town and out to sea. At the time of its construction the sea was much closer, but now there is a band of protected dunes and a small golf course between its sea gate and the water.

Two weeks in a trailer tent!

As you probably guessed from that title, we're on the road again! Our camping fortnight started with a single night at Barnstones Caravan and Camping Site, just outside Cropredy. This was quite a big site by our usual standards, almost all hard-standings and was surprisingly busy too. We were glad we had booked when we learned every pitch had been full the night before. Our pitch with electric hookup was £14 and we were right next to the good shower block which also included washing up sinks and a laundry room. I loved the penguin tiles pictured below.

For a busy site Barnstones was very quiet most of the time apart from constant traffic noise from the M40. We both liked Barnstones and would happily return here for a longer stay using the site as a base to explore the local area although perhaps not when the folk festival is on as I imagine the roads roundabouts would be ridiculously busy then!

From Barnstones, we continued on our way to North Norfolk and a few days at the very pretty Four Acre Farm Campsite at Wood Norton, near to Fakenham. A plaque at the entrance commemorates 120 trees being planted here for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the owner reckons he has planted over a thousand in the last fifteen years! Traffic noise here is sparse rather than continuous and the facilities are low key but good. A pitch with electricity is £15 per night and there are two toilet buildings, one of which also has a good shower and a washing up area. For entertainment we can watch swallows and bats at dusk, and yesterday sheep were being shorn in the next-door field. I think there's a couple of dozen pitches here over two fields and another field for rallys too. We are one of only about five units though so the site feels tranquil.

Four Acre Farm is our third time of pitching our Raclet Solena and I am pleased (and relieved) to be able to say we are definitely getting the hang of it now! From our several-hours effort for the tent and the awning at The Crib, we are now down to 11 minutes for just the trailer tent and half an hour total for both. Yay us!

Our first Trailer Tent experience at Buckfastleigh

Our Raclet Solena 

Do you remember that photo I posted a few weeks ago of the little orange trailer we took possession of on my birthday? Well it's now pitched up on a beautiful Camping And Caravanning Club CS site, The Crib, just outside Buckfastleigh. We are booked in here for four nights to get the hang of camping in a Raclet Solena and so far everything has gone pretty well! It's beautifully green here and, although traffic noise from the main road is pretty constant, it's not too intrusive and we can't see the cars for trees. Our nearest neighbours for the first night were bees and a trio of chickens! We can walk into Buckfastleigh and might go to see the steam railway there on Sunday.

Bee hives and a chicken house 

Obviously we expected that actually getting the tent set up for the first time would be considerably slower for us than it had been for the demo guy at Highbridge Caravans and it certainly was! Raclet Solenas like flat ground and the field at The Crib is sloping so we needed to borrow a plank to level it out! Once we got that sorted though, the rest was fairly straightforward and even hammering in all the awning pegs is much easier with Devon earth than it was with Spanish. I'm very happy with our Solena! The bed, with our mattress topper, is comfortable and there is a surprising amount of room in the folded-out trailer, even before we doubled the space with the awning. I love the large circular windows. They have three layers so can be dark canvas, mesh netting, clear plastic, and combinations of all three. You can see the view from the bedroom window at the end of this post. The trailer floor has a little carpet which looks much more practical than the ones that used to be in our Bailey caravan. There is also a zip-in groundsheet for the awning, but as this field is lush grass we decided not to use it here.

Our new 'toys' are great too! I'm sitting in my HiGear Delaware chair to type this post. It's good as a leisure or dining chair and I love the sturdy flip-up side table. We got one each to go with our folding Quest table. I like the efficient small gas jets on our Kampa Cucina double hob and it sits neatly on our old Outwell cupboard. Also Outwell, but a new acquisition, is our 24 litre EcoCool coolbox. It can run off mains or 12v and has a low power eco setting that actually works well. Apparently it can also be set to provide warmth - keeping cooked food hot - but we haven't tried that yet. Finally we've got our own little portable flushing toilet too! There is a shed bathroom onsite at The Crib, but the portable toilet is ideal  for the middle of the night.

So we're all set for a superb Bank Holiday Weekend and have fingers crossed that the glorious weather lasts until Monday.

The view from the bedroom!

A good campsite near Poole in Dorset

South Lytchett Manor Library 

Despite the best efforts of South West Trains I successfully travelled to Sutton and back to see the aforementioned Scrooge production which was great fun. Both my sister and niece were fabulous, of course, and I was pleased to see that three of the four performances were totally sold out!

We're at South Lytchett Manor campsite, just outside Poole in Dorset at the moment. The site is about a ten minute drive from the ferry terminal which is perfect for us as our boat leaves for France early tomorrow morning. As well as the convenient location, this is a really nice site too. It was named the AA Campsite of the Year for 2016 and is affiliated to the Camping And Caravanning Club although you don't need to be members to pitch up here. We got a very warm welcome on arrival and were allocated a wide hardstanding pitch. I was particularly glad of that with the incessant rain last night!

South Lytchett Manor has a well stocked and reasonably priced shop with a games room alongside and the wonderful Library Phone Box pictured above. I took the opportunity to swap a couple of books so if you fancy reading Asa Larsson or Witi Ihimaera, copies of one each of their books are here right now! There's plenty of other facilities here too. The shower blocks are well maintained and heated, although there is loud music playing all the time. We also got a free wifi code each and the signal strength is good - as far as pitch 52 at least!

If you don't have your own travelling home, South Lytchett Manor offer rental of three gorgeous Romany caravans instead. We didn't get to see inside any of them, but they look adorable from the outside. You can also hire bikes from Reception and there's a wide cycle path passing right outside the site entrance which leads off into Poole.

On a cycling note, Dave has been mooting changing his full size bike for a folder similar to mine and today took the plunge to buy one! He's got himself a Dahon Vybe D7 from Go Outdoors in Poole. He tried the bike out in the shop and was happy with it and it's offered at a good price right now - especially considering the extra 10% discount we got for showing our Camping And Caravanning Club card! We can fit both our folding bikes in the car now which means soon no longer having to lug the large bike indoors onto the bed every time we travel!

Dave on his Dahon Vybe D7 folding bike 

Dave looking cool on his new Dahon bike 

Our pitch at South Lytchett Manor 

We're back in Devon trying out Sedgewell Farm campsite and buying beds

View from our caravan door 

We're due to pick up the keys to our new Torquay flat on Wednesday and so are back in Devon again, making the most of our few remaining nomadic days by zooming around furniture shops and seeking caravan storage. Don't get the wrong idea though. This isn't the end of our touring adventures! We just want to have a static base for a while so our caravanning life will be an exciting contrast again.

In our attempts to try out as many campsites near to our new home as possible - we want to be able to make recommendations to potential camping visitors! - we have chosen the Camping And Caravanning Club site at Sedgewell Farm this time around. Previously we have stayed at Widend, Dornafield and Lemonford. Sedgewell Farm is near the village of Olchard and very conveniently located just off the A380, although, as we discovered, the turnoff is easy to miss. It is considerably smaller than the other three, officially just having fifteen pitches, and is

Bailey at Sedgewell Farm 

nicely laid out with five level caravan pitches along a terrace with a good view out over a wooded valley. Space for tent pitches is on a second terrace below. The prices quoted on the website are a bit out of date and we are paying £20 a night (it is highest season) for the pitch with our own electric hookup and water tap. Waste and waste water are a short distance away. There is also a nice timber building with toilets, good showers and a washing machine. Some kind soul has installed tempting snack vending machines too!

Despite being the first week of the school holidays and the lower part of the field being packed with families in tents it is pretty peaceful here. There is some traffic noise from the A380, but it isn't intrusive and there is often enough quiet to hear the birdsong. The campsite is pitch dark at night too because the proximity of a bat colony apparently means even low level lighting cannot be kept on at night.

Sedgewell Farm is about fifteen minutes by car from the edge of Torquay and also handy for Newton Abbot which was good for us today as we wanted to revisit the British Heart Foundation furniture shop on Queen Street. They have a wide range of good condition furniture and electrical items on display, but the only item I really liked this visit was this vintage green sofa which is actually for sale through the BHF eBay shop. We then drove on to Paignton where we very very tempted by a sofa and chair suite which arrived at The Bargain Box at the same time we did. We saw it being offloaded! However, we haven't yet measured the flat's doors so couldn't be sure it would fit through. Hopefully ino one else will buy it before we can return! The badly spelled, but well stocked Half Price Bedz shop was the only one to actually take any of our money today and they've done rather well! We've found a new bed and mattress for ourselves, plus those all important beds and mattresses for the guest room, and the first of two deliveries is due on Friday. Hopeful visitors may now form an orderly queue!

Sunny Torquay! You can't see our flat from here 

Back in the UK - traffic jams and April showers

Gee, but it's great to be back home!

Donkeys at Lost Pines CS 

We had a beautifully calm Channel crossing which I particularly appreciated - not being a natural sailor! Six hours from Caen to Portsmouth were made even easier by my sleeping for four of them and we had our own cabin which I firmly believe is worth the extra cost. Ouistreham's Les Pommiers campsite was again perfect for the ferry terminal. €18.10 per night with our ACSI card to include electric hookup and good facilities and then only about a ten minute drive along easy, well-signposted roads so not overly taxing for a sleepy person at stupid o'clock in the morning. I am much more confident at driving onto the boat towing the caravan now too. This crossing was aboard the Brittany Ferries' Mont St Michel which seemed to have a far more spacious car deck than we experienced previously on the Cap Finisterre. If you're a bit nervous about towing your caravan on and off a ferry, maybe try and book yourself onto the Mont St Michel. I don't know much about the rest of the boat's facilities. Our cabin was adequate and the sheets weren't as threadbare as I remembered from the other boat. The coffee from the bar was also adequate, but don't be misled by the huge white sofas by the windows - they are surprisingly hard!

Sanitary block at Lost Pines 

After the mostly quieter continental traffic of the past six months, driving the M27 out of Portsmouth felt like being in a video game again, but at least I knew to expect it this year. We headed straight for Bournemouth and are now on a wonderfully ramshackle Camping And Caravanning Club CS in St Leonards. The site is called Lost Pines and costs £12 a night including electric hookup. It is down a very bumpy little rural road and consists of five concrete hardstanding pitches with grass inbetween them. There is a brick-built sanitary block with two toilets and a shower each for men and women. The owners keep four little donkeys in a paddock just behind the CS and this reminded me of Camping Casteillets in southern France. Fellow caravanners who have used Lost Pines over several years told me that the owners used to have a successful market garden, but illness has curtailed this. Greenhouses still line the site entrance, but are overgrown with brambles and falling down - a melancholy sight. It's very quiet here too.

Our pitch at Lost Pines 

Unfortunately for our purposes, Lost Pines is almost a complete EE network blind spot. We zoomed to the nearby EE store at Castlepoint Shopping Centre on Thursday afternoon and were pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get a new SIM card for our Osprey. There wasn't even much of a queue. Their current good deal is 32GB of data for £28 per month on a rolling 30-day contract which should suit us. Back at Bailey though, even with the Osprey wedged in the skylight, most of the time we just get two bars of 2G which is scarcely enough to download emails. We are meant to be starting our househunting efforts here. We can't get Rightmove! The signal does improve after about half-past nine of an evening, but in the daytime we are better off driving half a mile away and parking up in a layby.

We drove into Bournemouth yesterday for a stroll around Christchurch Road and then through the Gardens by the seafront. Roadworks on the A338 made it quite a journey just to get that far and I really didn't like the sheer volume of traffic everywhere. I had previously thought of Bournemouth as a town, but it is really more of a busy city - and presumably gets even more manic during the summer season. The Victorian architecture is frequently beautiful however, especially looking up above rows of shops to see interesting window and roof details. Christchurch Road was fascinating for its variety of cultures and range of little independent shops. We saw a dozen different cuisines offered in less than five minutes walking. I don't think I could cope long-term with the noise and bustle though. Plus our Ford Mondeo Estate isn't going to be a convenient car for ad-hoc roadside parking! A shame as there are a few potential in-budget flats that caught our interest online. I think we're going to be moving on soon though.

We get heavy rain in Cynghordy and Now neonics are killing our birds as well as our bees

There's ever more frightening news emerging regarding not only the fate

of Britain's bees, but now also, it is being discovered, our wild birds too. I received this urgent email yesterday from SumOfUs:

"The bee-harming pesticides we’ve been fighting for years are worse than we imagined. Research suggests that neonicotinoids aren’t just decimating bee colonies - they’re hurting birds too. Researchers found that in areas with high concentrations of neonicotinoids, bird populations declined every year. This means our worst fears are coming true - neonicotinoids may be moving up the food chain and killing our birds and our bees.

For the sake of the birds, the bees, and the whole food chain, we are challenging one of the biggest neonicotinoids producers of them all: Bayer. In two weeks, we’re going straight to Bayer’s door with our massive petition - and we hope to have your name in our massive petition box."

Please sign and share this vital SumOfUs petition.

And now you've done that, let me show you our lovely new campsite in

Cwmcuttan lake 

Carmarthenshire! We are now at Cwmcuttan in the village of Cynghordy on a Camping And Caravanning Club CS for a change. It is very lush and green - the grass is absolutely sodden - but we have a large hardstanding pitch with room enough for Bailey and the awning as well as the car. The CS is full, but doesn't feel it as all five pitches are a good distance from each other. We have electric hookup, water and waste, and recycling facilities close by. Plus we get to use the site wifi and all for £12 a night. The wifi is a real bonus as we are already getting close to having used up our month's allowance on the Osprey and there's still a lot of month left. This will save me having to spend another tenner buying a data add-on. For anyone else using an Osprey while travelling, as we are, we've discovered that poor internet reception can sometimes be remedied by propping the device up in the skylight. We found this out when on the valley campsite at Broadgate Farm and it served us well at Crab Mill Farm campsite too.

Cwmcuttan is right by Cynghordy railway station which has four trains a

Our pitch at Cwmcuttan 

day stopping here. We can just glimpse them through the trees. Otherwise there is practically no noise at all other than a yappy dog on one of the other pitches. The site is adults only due to safety issues because it has a beautiful lake with waterlilies and good sized fish. There are ducks here too and a black cat who spent the afternoon snoozing in the shade by the bins and was definitely not impressed by our driving up and disrupting siesta time!

When I say 'no noise', this isn't strictly true as the rain has been

Pitched up at Cwmcuttan 

thundering on the roof in short bursts this evening. It was gloriously hot and sunny when we arrived - can you spot Dave recovering from his intense three hours of navigator duty? - and we managed to get pitched up, lunched and had the awning all done before the clouds found us again. Part of our drive here, on a high section of the A483, necessitated us driving through low cloud for about fifteen minutes. The road was nicely windy and pretty narrow by this point and the cloud was effectively thick fog so that was fun. Fortunately we were following a large slow motorhome so I could just hang back and see which direction their tail lights swung to judge the next bend in the road.

We are forecast lots more rain this week and are planning to stay holed up here until after the Bank Holiday weekend. Hopefully we will get to do some walking and sightseeing. If not, you can expect a glut of book review posts!

I make my 100th Kiva loan and we arrive in Wales

The 17th of the month is Kiva Repayments Day when the majority of loan

Irina 

repayments seem to flow into lender accounts all over the world and the Kiva website is a hive of activity! Yesterday I received more than expected, due to a Mali loan paying back in full two months early, so I had $75 credited to my account. This enabled me to lend to Nagjije: a dairy farmer in Kosovo; the Agua Viva Racana Group in Guatemala: one of whom owns her own restaurant; and to Irina who sells shoes in the Ukraine. Irina's is my 100th loan!

I have lent to entrepreneurs and businesswomen in 46 countries and

Nagjije 

love being a part of Kiva. Feeling that I am making a difference, even in such a small way, is important to me. If you have thought about joining Kiva, but are unsure what exactly it entails, you can try it out for free at the moment. New lenders are being offered a bonus loan, funded by Kiva's benefactors. You can see the whole process from choosing which loan to help fund, to seeing the repayments coming in down the line. The only difference is that the repayments will immediately bounce out of your account and back to Kiva! Interested? Click here to get your bonus loan.

Agua Viva Racana Group 

After a pretty lazy weekend that did allow me to catch up with my book

Bird sculpture at Crab Mill Farm 

reviews and post them all, we have been on the move again today. Bye bye Lancashire. Hello Wales! We are now at a nice Caravan Club CL called Crab Mill Farm which is actually a dairy farm and is on the outskirts of Broughton. £12 a night gets us the usual electric, water and waste facilities, plus we also have a toilet and shower block, picnic tables and a small kids play area. Fortunately there aren't any kids here at the moment! There's a couple of fun touches including the carved wooden bird sculpture pictured to the right and the fibreglass half-a-cow pictured below. I just caught a glimpse of the cow as we drove in and nearly slammed the brakes on because it does look pretty realistic when seen side-on and unexpectedly! We have a hardstanding pitch with our own water tap and electric post. Crab Mill is close to the main road so we don't have the fraught quarter-of-an-hour drive on single track lanes that characterised our arrivals and departures at Broadgate Farm. The compromise though is that we can constantly hear traffic noise from the A55.

Not a real cow! 

Being right on the border once again - even more so than with with Foulden Hagg and Berwick Upon Tweed - we are going to spend the next few days tripping in and out of Wales. We have already learned a few Welsh words from road signs we saw on the way to shop in Saltney this afternoon. 'Ffatri' is 'factory', 'trafig' is 'traffic' and 'araf' is 'slow'. I think I remember that 'gwyriad' is 'diversion', but I might not have that quite right. There is a large Airbus factory not far away.

The Saltney Go Outdoors store let us down by being out of stock of the

Calor gas bottle we wanted to refill. Their delivery is already three days late and they're not happy with Calor! Fortunately our large Spanish bottle isn't empty yet. We did get a few bits for Bailey - a new funnel tube for filling the aqua roll, a thick 25m cable for the electric hookup because we're fed up with the old one tangling and kinking itself, some more AquaKem, and a little bottle of waterproofing gunk for my boots. We checked out corner steady feet too because we've managed to lose one somewhere between Broadgate Farm and here. A set of four was a good price, but we only need a single one so will improvise with a bit of wood for now. The end-of-summer sale is on at Go Outdoors, both online and in store, so it was a dangerous time to visit! Don't forget to show your Caravanning And Camping Club card at checkout along with your Go Outdoors discount card - us CCC members get an extra 10% discount!

We buy an inflatable awning! Outdoor-Revolution Compact AirLite 340

We've spent rather a lot of money today - mostly at Teesside Caravans

Our new awning looking rather smart 

with a little at Go Outdoors too! No doubt you've all been on tenterhooks since the demise of our Towsure porch awning, eager to know with what we might replace it. No? Oh well, I'm going to write about it anyway!

Dave did all the research this time around. We considered another basic porch awning, a full-size awning, and a new-fangled inflatable awning. Our choice is limited by the odd door placement on the Bailey Orion which means that the back poles generally need to go right across the windows - which bow outwards - so the awning doesn't sit flush to the caravan side. A full awning would solve this, but they are generally heavy and look a faff to put up so Dave decided to focus on the new style inflatables. They don't have back poles - although we learned today that poles are an optional extra - and are supposed to be so quick to erect and dismantle that it would be easy for us to do this when strong winds are again forecast. Several companies now do versions but it is difficult to decide between them based on small photographs. Luckily, we are near a huge caravan shop and showroom, Teesside Caravans, which has awnings actually put up for customers to see. Dave measured outside Bailey and calculated that we could fit the mid-size 340cm Outdoor-Revolution models, gaining ourselves nearly a metre more space.

Standing inside our chosen Outdoor-Revolution Compact AirLite 340

And from the other side! 

allowed us to appreciate just how big it is! The fabric is much sturdier and I love the huge window panels. The doors are very wide with the option to have them all open or just half way.There are triangular 'sunroof' panels too so it feels light, and adaptable ventilation at the corners helps with airiness. The Awning Guy at Teesside was very helpful and happy to spend time explaining the features and also demonstrating how the air-filled pillars work. We got lucky as well because the shop has some factory seconds at £649 instead of the rrp of £749. The only fault is a little discolouration in places on the pale panels and all guarantees etc still stand. We talked about whether the marks would be irritating long term and decided, for the sake of £100, we could ignore them!

Having got our new awning home we discovered that the speedy putting

It came out, but will it ever go back in? 

up only actually applies to the main shell - which did go up within just a couple of minutes. What took absolutely ages, although should be a breeze once we get the hang of it, is pegging down the back pads so that they don't gape away from the caravan sides. It took us several attempts to work out exactly which strap is the best in which direction. Also, we hadn't fully considered that putting the awning over far enough to allow Bailey's door to rest in its catch means the awning end is just into the awning rail's downward curve. So one of our inflatable poles is at a screwy angle, making the gaping side even trickier to overcome. I think next time we put it up, we will move a foot or so further towards the back. The door won't then open all the way, but that's not really a problem and the awning pole should then be straight. The two inflatable bracing poles are far easier to use than their metal counterparts and only need one person to install them. Unfortunately one of ours keeps going flat so we think it must have a puncture or a dodgy seam. Dave is going to try and find the fault later, but we might need to take it back to swap for a good one. On the whole though, we are happy with our new awning and know from experience that we will learn its tricks and short cuts! And I am sure we entertained the other campers here for a while!

Teesside Caravans is only about five miles from a branch of my new

Super comfy trews 

favourite shop, Go Outdoors. It was such hassle to find a pair of convertable trousers that I liked that, now adoring my super-comfortable HiGear Nebraska ones, I thought I should buy and stash a second pair for when the first ones wear out. I also wanted new walking poles as the joints are shot in mine and they keep telescoping at inopportune moments! A timely email from the Camping and Caravanning Club had announced a new discount of 10% for members at Go Outdoors too. It only applies to the Discount Card price so you have to already have a Go Outdoors Discount Card, and isn't added on sale items. I got an extra £1.59 off my trousers bringing them down to £14.40, but the HiGear Walker poles I chose were already on special at a pair for a tenner. They are a little heavier than my knackered pair - which should mean extra anti-bingo-wing exercise! - and have antishock which the TrekRites didn't. I'm looking forward to trying them out on our next walk sometime soon.

Dammit! We're going to need a new awning!

Our campsite here at Great Busby is an open fields and it's pretty breezy

Dave in a buttercup meadow 

all the time. We had put our awning up partly as somewhere wind-free to sit and were enjoying eating al fresco, but as of yesterday morning is in a crumpled, snapped and torn heap awaiting a visit to the local tip. Grrr! We had seen the forecast for stronger winds, nowhere near as strong as at Roquetas, and thought we would be ok, which indeed we were all through the night - sleep being overrated anyway! Then, a slight change of wind direction as we were eating our breakfast and Dave looked up to comment that he can see the awning roof bars through the window. Normally they are much higher than that! We struggled to get the remnants dismantled before there was any damage to Bailey and succeeded, but with one splintered carbon fibre pole, one very bent roof pole, a large tear and, of course one repaired small tear and a sewn up door, we thought it beyond saving. So, we are now back in the same position as in August 2013 and looking for porch awning or full awning recommendations. Please comment below or tweet me your suggestions!

Practically all of yesterday was spent cooped up out of the wind so we

I think this bridge had a tree-related
accident 

were eager to get out walking today. Dave plotted a route of about three hours starting from Bailey and circumnavigating Great Broughton. The countryside hereabouts is gorgeous and we strode through plenty of spectacular scenery such as the buttercup meadow pictured above. Unfortunately, several local landowners, much like their Sussex counterparts, seem to delight in obliterating footpaths and obscuring signs so we had several opportunities to admire scenes twice - as we retraced our steps - and might have indulged in a couple of squabbles over the map. Dave uses Mapyx Quo software to view our Ordnance Survey maps and we need to check how up to date their versions are as the entire of Stokesley Business Park was noticeably absent! As was the footpath directing us to it thanks to an equestrian centre's sign removal and dungheap piled over the route. Someone has gone to considerable effort for walkers though because there is a dedicated detour footpath going all around the Park, hedged and green and making us feel still rural despite the dozens of industrial units a few metres away. Thank you whoever created this path!

Ellerbeck was our lunch spot, perched on a large rock on the bank to eat

our ham sandwiches before walking alongside the beck for a way. We had a few lucky wildlife sightings - I saw a goldfinch and Dave topped that with a roe deer. Then there was a huge furry caterpillar and a pair of hawk-like birds which may have been peregrine falcons. We watched one flying for several minutes but, as often seems the case, it didn't look quite like anything on the RSPB bird identifier website. Surprisingly, I hardly saw any butterflies all day and maybe only a half dozen bees throughout our whole five hour walk. This struck me as very odd because there were flowers in bloom everywhere. I'm glad that we try to support beekeepers by buying local honey wherever we are. It initially appears more expensive per jar than the generic supermarket stuff, but the flavour is generally far more intense so we use less per serving (unless Dave's mixing it with his favourite Fage yoghurt!).

My HiGear trousers were definitely a good purchase. They remained comfortable all day and were able to cope with temperature changes from cool winds to fairly hot sunshine. They are a bit pollen-strewn though so I think more laundry will be needed tomorrow. We are also planning to cycle into Stokesley for a proper look around. I forgot to mention finding a warm welcome at the Jet Miners Inn this afternoon. Underestimating our walk length meant we needed a refreshing drink! Our landlady reassured us that there were still lots of daylight hours in which to find our way home! They had this great sign up in the back bar. I couldn't find any references to the electric brush invention on Wikipedia though. Am I failing to get the joke?

At the Jet Miners Inn

The sun is shining on Great Busby

The North York Moors are easily as gorgeous as the Peak District, I think!

Walking the Cleveland Way 

We had our first short walk this afternoon and there are stunning views out over miles and miles of countryside from the top of the hill just behind our current campsite, South View Farm. The Camping And Caravanning Club are our hosts here and the CS site, between Carlton In Cleveland and Great Busby, is an open field, again with good views. It's fairly windy, but warm and sunny and pretty peaceful other than the eerie cries of peacocks from a neighbouring farm. (Dave recognised the sound - he's good at identifying birds by ear.) We certainly didn't expect to get warmer as we trekked further north! The only facilities are electric, water and waste but then the site is only £12 a night. We've patched the tear and got the awning up allowing us to eat a lunch and two evening meals outside. It was so soporifically nice out there early evening today that I struggled not to doze off to my audiobook!

I will just jump back to York to tell you about a lovely garden nursery and farm shop on the outskirts of the city, in the village of Bishopthorpe. The Brunswick Organic Nursery And Craft Workshop is not only a mouthful (!), but also a charitable enterprise offering workplace opportunities to adults with learning difficulties. We had a lunch invite to old friends of Dave's, Frances and John, and I was able to create a giftset of jams to take. Brunswick also has fresh veg, bird food and feeders, and fun gifts for gardeners. Pop in if you're ever nearby.

We supported local shops in Stokesley this morning visiting two butchers and also getting lucky (or not from a parking point of view) by arriving in town on market day! The town is pretty with a vibrant High Street and the small market added an extra bustle. We got our veg there and also two fresh mackerel from a fishmonger's van. There is also a Co-Op and a great shop called Boyes which sells an amazing variety of products - we got sealant for the shower, a trivet, a four plug gang and a roll of cling film! Stokesley is only about three miles from our campsite so I am planning to walk or cycle in on a quieter afternoon next week to have a proper look around.

Our gorgeous view 

We have another anniversary to observe in my fortieth year - the 125th anniversary of Bram Stoker's visit to Whitby. The town is on our to-do list and apparently we must eat fish and chips there, but the CS owner here made sure to tell us not to try visiting on a weekend. In a fun coincidence, one of my free AudioSYNC downloads this week is a full cast recording of Dracula which I have taken as a good omen!

And, I almost forgot, I have won a book too thanks to Sophie and Suze's Netgalley Challenge which has now finished but had several mentions in my recent book reviews. I will be receiving a signed copy of The Judas Scar by Amanda Jennings. Very excited!

More good news from 38 Degrees today. I am trying to do my bit to

reduce food waste and, thanks to publicity including a now 170,000 strong petition, Tesco is the first UK supermarket to announce that they will donate all their unsold food to charity. "The Tesco’s move is a positive step, but unless it’s inscribed in law, tonnes of perfectly good food will still end up in landfill sites. So while it’s hot in the news, let’s ramp up the pressure on the government to force all big food chains not to waste their unsold food. Momentum is on our side. Green MP Caroline Lucas has championed the campaign since the beginning, and now Hackney Labour MP Diane Abbott has submitted a parliamentary motion calling for it to become law." If you haven't already done so, please sign and share the petition too.

Enjoy 3 for 2 on all fruit, herbal and green teas at Twinings throughout June