One birthday party weekend and four days in Big Ted

Brian and Charles at Dunstable Downs Parkrun. A great single circuit 5km run on the undulating downs sadly with little view. You can see the early morning mist, but it did clear to a beautiful day (after the run had finished). A normal time for me, a great time for a fit, young Charles!

We had a lovely weekend in Edlesborough for Charles 21st party (his birthday is actually the end of August, so he’s the baby of the class. As opposed to Caroline who’s birthday is just into September is the oldest in the class). We drove down aiming to be with them by 15.00, to go to Luton airport to collect my dad and Elizabeth. We were a bit delayed, they were a bit more delayed, so all was good. We had had a bit of difficulty trying to work out where to park, to collect, without incurring huge costs etc. Dad was meant to be coming through with special assistance as two cases, and him is very difficult for Elizabeth. This actually worked very well for us, go to carpark 1, park in a disabled bay, go to speak to them in the parking office, with the ticket, which they will validate, so giving you half an hour free parking. It didn’t work so well for them unfortunately, he was wheeled from the plane to passport control, where they were unceremoniously dumped! They were spitting feathers when we finally found them in the carpark! Back to Jonathan and Lucy’s for a BBQ, in the surprisingly warm evening, very well cooked and very filling. We then set off across a field to our little self catering cottage for the weekend, while the ‘olds’ (dad and Elizabeth, and Lucy’s mum and stepdad) were taken in the opposite direction to the Travelodge.

Our very nice self-catering apartment

Saturday Brian was determined to do a park run and had found a very small local one. He’d even persuaded Charles to go with him. This was only difficult because of the early start, not because of the run. Fitness is everything to Charles. They both seemed to enjoy it, though I’m not sure Charles will be doing them weekly! After breakfast we went to the house where I went out for a slightly hilly walk with Lucy and her sister Sarah. Quick lunch then took Caroline shopping. We bought all the kitchen stuff Charles needed when he went off to university, so only fair that we did the same for Caroline when she heads off to Oxford. Nice to spend some time with her too.

The birthday boy at his evening party

The evening do was just in the local pub where we had the back room for embarrassing photos, food, chat, and dancing. It was a lovely evening, over all too quickly. Sunday after a gentle start for us we went to the house where breakfast was in full flow for Charles uni mates. He’d had to leave by 09.00 to go to an army course down near Blandford Forum, which coincidentally was where dad and Elizabeth were heading. Might as well make Jonathan’s trip worthwhile! We collected Lucy’s mum and stepdad as although Telford is a little out of our way, it’s a lot less out of our way than a special journey for Jonathan. Chatting certainly passed the time.

The party in full swing. Lucy (second from L) with her two sisters, Jonathans head, Richard (Jackies dad), Caroline and Annabel (wife of Jackies uncle)

Caroline thoroughly enjoying herself with brother Charles (just out of sight), two of his university mates and Carolines second cousin

Monday we went to get Ted out of storage for a weekend trip to the Lake District. We thought we might as well add a couple of days on at the beginning to make the journey worthwhile. A late breaking decision meant we headed east on Wednesday to near Richmond to avoid the horrible weather over the west of the country. This worked very well, though the journey up the M1 was fairly hideous. We arrived at a little campsite in clear weather and headed out to the pub, for a couple of pints, the crossword and a fab burger. Thursday was blue sky, we couldn’t ask for more, so we walked the couple of miles to Richmond, via Easby Abbey and Richmond Falls. Round the town, the river walk and the Richmondshire museum, lunch, and tea and cake, before walking back. A grand day out (see our Relive video with extra photos: click here).

Its good to be out in Big Ted again. Here he is on Millfield Campsite by Brompton on Swale near Richmond, North Yorkshire

It’s been nice being out in Ted again, though slightly strange. We haven’t been out in him since we were in Devon, in March, when mum died, so the odd thing has been in the wrong place as we’d packed up in a bit of a rush to head north, not knowing what we were expecting. He has however just embarrassed himself, we’ve driven west to Hartsop, just near Ullswater and Helvellyn where we are due to meet Dave and Pauline, longtime members of the mountaineering club who moved away before we retired. We filled up with fuel just past Penrith and carried on our way till I took us down a wrong turn. This wasn’t really an issue, except that in stopping to turn round we could both see and smell diesel on the road! We’ve had this happen before, broken fuel filter just after filling up. Fortunately we managed to limp to the campsite so we are parked up, waiting for the Crossways rescue man from Gretna to come and sort us out. He’s managed to source a filter, but it hasn’t been delivered yet. If he gets it before 17.00 he’ll come out today, if not it’ll be tomorrow morning, our good walking day! - decent weather, unlike Sunday, when we have to get back anyway as Ted has to go back into storage on Monday as bright and early on Tuesday Brian starts the Cotswold way.

On our walk to Richmond and this is the ruins of Easby Abbey

It’s now Sunday, our repair man didn’t make it out to us on Friday night, but he was with us about 09.30 on Saturday morning and had done the job before the kettle had even boiled to make his coffee! Apparently it’s a really common fault with these vans, but I do think twice in three years is unfortunate!

These wall paintings were in the small attached church of Easby Abbey. They date from the 12th century and were whitewashed over during the Reformation in the 17th century and only found again by chance

Dave and Kanga dog arrived about 20.30 on Friday, sadly with no Pauline. She had been feeling more and more rubbish as the week had gone on and finally decided she wasn’t up to it. Brian did subtly say to Dave he didn’t want to catch anything for his walk, so Pol did a Covid test which was positive. We did sit with Dave in the pub, and did walk with him, but we have tried to be careful, no sitting in each others vans or hugs. Hopefully it’ll be ok. We walked ‘High Street’ on Saturday which was a good walk with the amount of day we had left and with Kanga’s little legs, not to mention that she’s 13. She did really well only huffing and puffing when the rest of us did on the very steep ascent. 15km and 750m of ascent, back by 16.00, shower, and even a quick sit in the sun before the pub booking at 18.30 (see our Relive video with extra photos: click here). We were really lucky, rain Friday afternoon and Saturday night and this morning, but yesterday? Perfect.

Richmond Falls

We were going to join Dave and Kanga for a little waterfall walk this morning, but £6 to park, and rain and the threat of wind and rain all day for our journey home meant we left them to it. Pleased we did really as although we haven’t had much rain, the wind has got up and the traffic has been awful our expected 4hour journey is going to be nearly 6, with only a short wee break (hope I don’t jinx it now, just got onto the M5 so half an hour to go). We’ll empty Ted but won’t take him to storage till tomorrow as Brian readies himself for the arrival of Paul, his partner in crime for the Cotswold. I’ll be taking them to Chipping Campden bright and early on Tuesday as they set off for their 8 days and 110 miles!

Richmond market square

We nearly trod on this little field mouse (or possibly a shrew) on the way back to the campsite

Fast forward to Saturday and on to Sykeside campsite by Brothers Water in the Lake District. Here Dave outside his motorhome, next to ours

On our walk up towards our three peaks of Thornthwaite Crap, High Street and The Knott, with Dave and Kanga dog

On the summit of Thornthwaite Crag (784m). The water in the distance is Windemere

On the summit of High Street (828m) so called as an old Roman road used too run across these hills 

Heading towards our last summit (that pile of rocks over there to the right. The water below left is Hayeswater and beyond is Brothers Water near our campsite

On the summit of The Knott (739m)

And that's from where we'd walked. The path leads off up to High Street. Beyond it, off the photo on our right was our first summit

Heading back down we had a fine view of Hayeswater. The river feeding it is Hayeswarter Gill and the summit above it was our first summit Thornthwaite Crag

We're heading down the steep slope towards the end of Hayeswater. There's a path on the opposite side of the Gill down there that we had to follow round and back down the Brothers Water

Back at the campsite the sun was shining in the later afternoon so we got the chairs out to enjoy the warmth and rehydration drinks before hitting the beer in the pub 

Kanga dog came to the pub with us but the exertions of the day caught up with here. Here she is under the table while we enjoy good beer, good food and good company!

Collecting our bacon baps from the Brotherswater Inn this morning. The nice day yesterday had gone, low cloud and light rain had replaced it with heavy rain forecast for the afternoon (after we'd gone). We were very lucky to get our weather window for our walk on Saturday. The road ahead you can see is the start of the Kirkstone Pass. Our sat-nav was quite happy to send us that way in Big Ted, being the shorter way home, but general advice was to go the other, longer way via Penrith unless you fancy tight bends, narrow road at the top of the pass and potentially difficult reversing should a large vehicle be encounted coming the other way. We opted for the longer stress free option!