on the road again

 After the heat of last week (39c which for us in the UK is HOT) the weather changed, cooled down and even rained so we headed back out in the Van. This time we headed for Leyburn in the Yorkshire Dales.

The Caravan and Motorhome Club site is situated in an old quarry, we have visited before and love the fact that it has the pitches on different levels and the whole site is nestled amongst the trees.

There are many birds, rabbits and a resident peacock named Gerald who will take food from your hand. Especially crackers.

Please excuse the terrible photo of me, I had quickly pulled on an old fleece not realising how awful it looked.

Most of the weekend was spent relaxing, lazy morning followed by a walk into Leyburn then back to the Wensleydale Railway.

Unlike many of the heritage lines that we visit, this one operates diesel locomotives and unfortunately does not draw in the crows like the steam engines do.

On Saturday I think there were only a handful of people travelling from Leyburn to Leeming Bar.

Back on the campsite I walked round to the remains of the Lime kilns before heading back to the van.

My spinning wheel accompanied me but didn't get a great deal of use but I did manage to bag some decent knitting time and made good headway on this hat.

True to form, you can see the join in this photo. I usually try and make sure it's at the back but I'm tired (or at least that's my excuse) 

that's about all for now, plans for the week include unpacking, repacking, knittin , spinning, fleece prep and maybe an itsy bitsy bit of housework.

Speak soon.

Ist road trip of the year and a knitting update.

Hi,

We had a cheeky night away at the weekend, great day but pretty lousy night for me as unable to sleep lying down properly, the weekend was promptly followed by a trip to the doctors and I'm now  waiting for an appointment with a muscular skeletal consultant !

Anyway, back to the weekend.

This time we travelled up into North Yorkshire to give the van a run out to recharge the batteries. We stayed on a site just outside Knaresborough so we had electric hook up for the heating (very small fan heater, works so much better than the vans heating system)

After arriving at midday we just had time for a quick cuppa before catching the bus into knaresborough. A cold day but not too bad so we had a wander around to see what grabbed our attention.

The obvious one was the painted windows. Many of the older buildings have bricked in windows, I assume this is a result of the window tax many years ago. Several of theses window spaces have been embellished with paintings.

We are always a sucker for blue plaques giving the history of buildings, Knaresborough did not disappoint with this Flax Mill.

Interesting that they use the term heckle where we would these days talk about using a hackle for combing or blending wool.

We then made our way, via several charity shops, to the castle. Amazing views of the town and an obvious place of importance ( details on another plaque.)

The views were pretty good as well, the weir and site of another flax mill

and the viaduct !

A hint of the past was glimpsed through the trees

Old Mother Shipton was waiting for us when we got back into town.

This is one of those amazing sculptures that you can spend ages looking at then suddenly see something new !!

After coffee we headed back to the van for the evening and I actually got some knitting done !