English travels - Part 3

Flamborough Head, East Yorkshire

Our first rain, but that’s ok, we’d been down Spurn Point, so just the drive to Martin. An hour or so, our sort of journey! Easy to find, and plenty of space to park Ted. It was just a bit strange when the first phone call I’ve made to him probably in 18 years was “we are just passing the Italian restaurant, open the gate”! It was lovely to see him, meet Alison his partner, 8 year old Joe, their son, and James, Alison’s son. We’d had a good gossip before being taken to the beach, all of 10 minutes walk away, and left to our own devices while Martin did the school run. We picked Bridlington rather than just the beach. Pleasant seaside town, with a working harbour, too cold for ice cream, but perfect for fresh donuts (here's a short Relive video of the walk, with more photos. Click Here and press the arrow to play). We arrived back at the house, not long after Joe who was very excited to see real people. He gave us the full tour of the property, 2 horses, 2 ponies, 2 rabbits, 1 ferret, 3 turkeys and chickens and ducks. We ran about, played, chatted, ate fish and chips and had a lovely time.

Alison, Joe and Martin at their spacious house near Bridlington

Jackie with her old university friend, Martin

We had to make sure we were up and out of Ted before Joe went off to school to say our farewells. I got the gammon into the thermal cooker for dinner while Martin did the school run. On his return we followed him to Flamborough Head (location: 54°07'43.3"N 0°06'21.2"W) for a lovely little walk, before heading north to Goathland (or Adensfield for those that used to watch Heartbeat.) (location: 54°24'00.6"N 0°43'10.5"W)for our next social meeting with Simon and Diane driving down from Edinburgh.

Martin and Alison's son Joe with one of their two little ponies

Set up with Si & Di's campervan in Goathland

We arrived at the campsite and both went very quiet, I tried to find someone while Brian used the toilet. “You won’t be going in there” he said. We walked up and down the site (it was all on a slope, as well as undulating) and struggled to find a space for us, let alone a space for us and Si & Di, who had booked a neighbouring pitch, in theory! The people and children running about were fairly off putting, we couldn’t find anyone to speak to and Searchforsites showed another site closer in to Goathland. We rang them, they had space, though we would have to move for the Friday, the beginning of the Bank Holiday weekend, and she nearly choked

A great (but cold!) evening with Dawn, Dan, Di & Si

when I said “we are at Brow Top Farm (location: 54°23'28.1"N 0°43'17.2"W), you are not like that are you?” She had warned us it was down a bit of a potholed drive. She wasn’t wrong. We turned off that and it got worse, twisty, up and downy, and potholed and then we got to the bottom, and the railway bridge! A man in a car had reversed out of our way (kindly) and knew there were going to be two of us, but no, the other van wasn’t behind. However on being asked how high the bridge was got a little confrontational, “you should know the legal maximum height of a vehicle “ we do know Ted’s height, he is fine, there was no height on the bridge. With heart in mouth, and head out of the skylight I encouraged him forward, reversing up the track would have been horrendous. We probably had 3” to spare, it was all a bit stressful! (Abbots House Farm, location: 54°23'39.7"N 0°42'16.6"W)

On our Goathland & waterfall walk. This is Thomason Foss waterfall

Mallyan Spout waterfall

We found ourselves in a nice field with a pretty stream, we got ourselves level and put the water on to heat for showers. The electric was a bit pathetic, fortunately after tripping it once, we could turn our heater demand down. Sadly Si&Di seemed to spend half their life resetting a tripped switch. We were clean and tidy by the time Si&Di arrived, the gammon was cooked, potatoes peeled and parsley sauce made. Tea and cake then.

So started three days of sitting outside wearing as many clothes as humanly possible.

Brian had found a great walk for our first day, it went through the campsite. Two waterfalls, some rolling fields and finished up at the one open pub/coffee shop in the village. (here's a short Relive video of our walk, which includes more photos. Click Here and press the arrow to start) The deluxe hot chocolate and cake was great, though mine was bigger than me. I could only manage half, the other half coming on our walk the following day and then being shared with Brian. Dan and Dawn from Tadcaster were coming over for dinner, we had heard about each other so it was lovely to meet, and very good of them to drive an hour and a quarter each way on a school night. Di cooked that night, some yummy moussaka. She was very calm as she carried the baking tray with flaming containers out of the van and put it on the floor. They went out, and as they weren’t plastic containers they could go back to finish cooking and all was well.

Seen on a house in Goathland. Apparently this is fairly typical in Yorkshire according to Simon (a born and bred Yorkshireman) 

Brian’s knee was giving him some gyp the following day, so we thought we were having a shorter day, till he decided he wanted to tick off another trig point. We are not doing all 6500! (here's a short Relive video of our walk, which includes more photos. Click Here and press the arrow to start) 

Cafe stop at the Mallyan Spout Hotel

Finished back at the coffee shop, I’d already had my cake so I decided to have a milkshake, it had two fingers of twix cut up on it! I think the sugar rush was probably just as big as the previous day! We had hoped, in vain, that we would be able to get dinner out, but there was nothing so we had a very interesting meal. The remainder of the dips, olives and pita bread from the previous evening, we had an ‘emergency quiche’ and some salad. They had two portions of Thai green curry, and we had cheese and crackers, a four course mix and match dinner, and far too much wine, again!

Jackie's cake was on the large side. She only ate half of it! 

It was lovely to see them but our little trip was soon over, they headed back to Edinburgh and we headed south towards Mansfield. A peaceful campsite, just what we ordered after walking and drinking (Norwood Farm campsite, location: 53°14'34.2"N 1°12'35.9"W).

Our walk the next day took us to the summit of Simon Howe hill (260m) and another trig point!

Dinner was the end of the gammon, two duck eggs straight from the duck as we’d left Martin, and chips from the hot counter at Tesco that had reheated beautifully. We did head out for a little walk on the Sunday, he promised me a pub, but it was shut, a little further on though we came to the Gate. Probably not a pub we would ordinarily have gone in, but everyone sitting outside was so welcoming, we had a pint and some onion rings, along with sun, rain and hail. Bit like the previous few days had been then!

This is a zoomed in picture of an early warning station high on a hill in the distance. 'Don't take a photo of that' said Simon, 'we'll all get arrested'. Probably in some countries we would have been

We arrived back at mum on Bank Holiday Monday, our 18th wedding anniversary, after stopping for lunch with Tim and Jill in Derby and a very excitable Ruby dog. What a sociable, socially distanced time we had in the last week, it’s been fab, seeing real people. Back to Earth with a bang then, Tuesday I had a haircut, hurrah, Brian his second Covid jab and then an appointment with the skin clinic. Today mum and I have been to Sainsbury’s on the bus, home by taxi as a practice for her shopping without using the car. We were planning on lunch out, but April hail showers have spread in to May. It’s possible we may get out early evening instead, we shall see...!

The Famous Grouse - and looking very superior on the moorland as we ascended Simon Howe hill

Walking round Goathland. The town was known as Adensfield in the old 1990's TV series Heartbeat. The shop here has the Adensfield sign still 

Adensfield Garage (actually a gift shop in Goathland)

Here's that low arched bridge at the end of a mile long narrow potholed track leading to the Abbots House campsite. Not much headroom here! Had we not got through we would have been faced with a long reverse along that narrow track

Relaxing on our campsite in Langwith, Nottinghamshire after the previous hectic few days

Drinks at The Gate hotel in Langwith. Here its sunshine, but it also hailed while we were there. Good job we were undercover

The Gate hotel. We would probably have walked on past in a normal world, but when we walked past it was open, tables were outside  and people were drinking beer! The five tables occupied were locals who arrived at different times but all seemed to know one another. By the time we left we had spoken to most of them and the all said goodbye as we left. What a friendly place!