Happy Days

I booked a site at 9am on Saturday and by lunchtime I was in Pickering,  parked up on a frosty farm site. The journey up Sutton Bank was easy,  but lots of snow at the top.  I'd called in the Beadnell Grange again for a bacon butty and to buy a nice steak for tea.

I walked into town and visited the church to see some beautiful murals.

Unfortunately the Beck Isle museum was closed for the winter so I did some shopping: thermal fingerless gloves,  an egg cup,  spare forks and batteries,  and a new top for £3. Not bad.

It was really cold overnight,  I was OK but needed the hot water bottle and several layers of clothing.  There was ice inside the windscreen in the morning!

On Sunday I went to Scarborough. The Rotunda museum was closed for Winter... I walked along the beach in the sun.

Amazingly there were surfers braving the cold.  Crazy people.

I caught the cliff tram up from the spa centre,  then walked across the esplanade bridge to a cafe for coffee and lemon pancakes.

What a great weekend! 

Feeling battered!

I took the van up to site in a nearby village to check it all out, and arrived back home the next day feeling as if I had been at sea for a week. The weather was atrocious, lashing rain and gusty wind shaking the van all night. I was intending to have a shower in their lovely facilities and then go out for the evening but that was all abandoned and instead I just hunkered down.

Plus side

• No leaks! not even the door

• All electrics work

• Bed cushions much more comfortable

• Gas hob glass cover gives lots more usable space.

• I got Spotify and the radio working via my tablet hot spot! (Mum - if you are reading this, that is a very good thing.)

• Getting the hang of the Dali-esque mentality of the back door.

Minus side

• Putting the bed together is more like crazy paving with small life-rafts, and very tiring. I obviously am missing a trick - I nearly fell through the middle of it in the night, which can't be right.

• The curtains need some work - they have used adhesive velcro which has now dropped off.

So all ready to go now IF IT EVER STOPS RAINING.

York trip abandoned

Here's the York site, during the Christmas flood. The water reached over 5ft and so the site is closed until further notice. I'm going to book somewhere else for my test run, but it is STILL raining every day, so I won't go far. I just want to try the van out - it is all packed except for bedding, so ready to go.



I can now open the door and lock it ok, but it doesn't feel quite right - I can't seem to just close the door, I have to lock it each time which I think is going to be a pain. I'll see how I go, now I have my trusty graphite spray.