We have loved having a week at home in the Dales and there has been a real feeling of spring in the air. The weather has been much drier this week and we have managed to get out on four quite substantial hikes covering over 35km.
We are right in the midst of lambing season and they are absolutely everywhere, the fields look like they are bouncing at times with them jumping around! I love that I can sit and watch them from the window and you can hear them bleating for their mums from dawn 'til dusk.
We have enjoyed just setting off from the house and exploring some of the paths and lanes around our village. One of my favourite breeds of sheep are Herdwicks and I was really happy to spot a field full of them about 2 miles down the road. Sadly, the fields are still like bogs, there is so much mud and surface water so we have stayed to the roads and Bridleways for most parts.
On Thursday we woke up to bright sunshine so we quickly made the decision to go further into the Dales on a hike between the 2 picturesque villages of Austwick and Clapham. It is a great walk along a stone paved bridleway with an extra loop that goes further up the valley towards Ingleborough and Trow Gill. You eventually drop down into Clapham through a series of moss covered old Victorian tunnels. I do keep meaning to read up on the history of why they are there.
If you are planning a trip to the Dales, I would highly recommend staying in this area as a base as there is so much to do. There are a couple of fab pubs and the famous Cheese Courtyard Dairy and Rind restaurant.
We have spent the bank holiday weekend down in Cheshire with all the family. We feel this one of the biggest benefits of our early retirement, as previously we would have been packed up and off travelling as soon as we broke up from school for the term. We had very few occasions where we would spend quality time with Mum and the kids.
It seems that some of our YouTube milestones are coming through thick and fast. This week we have gone over the benchmark of 10,000 subscribers which was something beyond our wildest dreams! We thought we would get a couple of hundred followers, mainly family and friends who might want to keep up with what we are doing and where we are on our travels. So this is a huge thank you to those of you who have subscribed and regularly watch our channel.
The second milestone was having a video that has had over 100, 000 views!! Wow, I can't even comprehend that amount of people being interested in what we do! We have had so many amazing messages and comments over the past few months from our subscribers. We love hearing from like minded people who share their stories with us and we feel we have built a really friendly, early retirement, van loving community around the channel.
Neither of us have a history of being writers, we both trained as PE teachers! But this week Richard celebrated having an 8 page travel article published in the MMM Motorhomers Magazine. We had an absolutely fabulous 5 week RV road trip across the Rocky Mountains with mum last September and the article was a summary of that trip. It also felt good to have some money coming into our bank account for a change!
We have been reviewing our yearly goals over the last few days and one of my targets was to write an extra blog a month to do with our early retirement. With that in mind, I will be releasing an extra blog tomorrow night reflecting on how we keep a sense of purpose in our early retirement. this is something we get asked by so many people who are worried about their loss of identity if they give up their careers.
Hope you have all had a great bank holiday weekend
Jackie and Richard
Your channel and blog have been a huge inspiration to us and I think you do an admirable and professional job on your channel. The success is well deserved!
We are avid followers of both YouTube and blog so completely see why you have so many followers. Looking forward to seeing you do a talk at the NEC show one day maybe 😉