We love the fact that when we return from our travels, we feel that we are coming back to a little holiday cottage. We have spent the last week getting out and about exploring some of the villages and scenic places of the Yorkshire Dales close to home.
Grassington
For fans of James Herriot's 'All Creatures Great and Small' new TV series, Grassington is the filming location used for the fictional village of Darrowby.
It is a gorgeous, quaint little village with many houses and shop fronts looking as though they belong in the 1940's. We have only visited it a couple of times over the years - one being a memorable Victorian Christmas themed weekend in the Late 1980's - which they still have every December.
We had a really nice amble around the village and walked down to the tiny hamlet of Linton which is based on the banks of the River Wharfe and has the picturesque Linton Falls that can be viewed from the bridge.
The main carpark in the village is quite unique, in that you go over a cattle grid and there are sheep and lambs all over the place. It is certainly not adviseable to try and drive through the very narrow streets of the village, those stone walls are not very forgiving and the roads not made for cars passing.
Settle
After pottering in town getting a few jobs done, we decided to take a hike out the back of Settle up to Scaleber Force waterfalls. Last time we were there it had rained heavily for the previous few weeks and the falls were very dramatic. I wanted to see what they were like in normal conditions and the answer was - still very impressive. We managed to find a different hiking route out of Settle with great views back over the town.
Riding our luck with the weather we took a longer route back to town going over the lambing fields towards Attermire scar and caves. This is probably one of my favourite places in all of the Yorkshire Dales with the green valley floor and limestone crags. It looks very other worldly - a truly unique landscape.
Walking up through the cobbled streets of Upper Settle, we were reminded why this was the area that we wanted to relocate to. It is a lovely town with so much to offer as a tourist destination.
It is still peak lambing season in the Dales and there are tiny bleating creatures everywhere! Even after 2 months I cant help but stop and watch them skipping around and playing "king of the castle".
Malham
We had a really nice bank holiday weekend with friends up from Cheshire. Lizzie is both a huge Harry Potter fan and also has a PHD in rocks so Malham was the obvious place to take her!
Malham is definitely one of the honey pot tourist destinations of the Dales so we were up and off by 08.30 to bag a parking spot and not be caught in the inevitable traffic queues that form by mid morning.
We had a lovely walk up to the limestone pavement above Malham Cove. The hike up is pretty short and steep, but so worth the view. I am never short of amazed at the physical geography of the area with the huge curving ampitheatre shaped cliff and the white rocks and deep cracks of the limestone pavement.
We hiked across to the equally impressive waterfall at Gordale Scar and back past Janet's Foss.
Mid week, we have this walk pretty much to ourselves but by lunchtime on a bank holiday weekend it was absolutely heaving! There were dozens of people in the rock pool below the waterfall and the path all the way back to the car had a steady stream of visitors. It is great to see so many people wanting to be outdoors in beautiful places and even better to see so many children enjoying their adventures of 'climbing a mountain' that is in the Harry Potter films.
Another bonus of going to Malham is driving over the moors past the highland cow herd who like to act as a road block!
For the first time in several months we have been able to get out onto the fields and paths around the village and explore where we live. The bluebells are out in the woodlands and the lambs are out in the fields. We had to laugh when the bullocks were released from the barns finally this week into the fields - they just kept skittishly running around in one complete herd after being in the barns for so long. The trees are all in full blossom and the summer wild flowers are starting to appear - it is truly a beautiful place that we now call home.
Tidying up the garden ready for the summer
At some point over the summer we need to start getting our garden plans into place. We never thought we would get a house with a garden on our budget - and it is a decent size garden.
As we plan on travelling far and wide for the next few years, we need a garden that is low maintenance with some nice plants and bushes that will come up annually and add lots of colour.
We need some storage for tools and bits and pieces - not enough to fill a shed. We want to build up a wood store as we do use a lot of wood over winter as the wood burner is our main source of heating the house.
For now, we have cleared all the weeds and cut back some of the bushes so it looks tidy and then we have the exciting prospect of ordering the wood and shed to get started.
Lets hope our DIY skills putting up the washing line are not a sign of things to come as we can't afford to pay any landscape gardeners to come and do the work for us!
Preparing Nelson for Europe
While we were away in Cornwall, we noticed that the leisure battery was regularly dropping below 12.0v in the evenings after the solar panel was not getting enough light to top up the battery - a sure sign that the batteries were getting pretty flat. Another sign was that the fridge was not working as efficiently!
It is nearly 4 years since we last replaced the batteries and we use the van all the time, so although £210 to replace the 2 batteries is expensive, £££'s per use over 4 years is still great value!
Our biggest issue is actually our total lack of DIY skills. But with so much time on our hands and YouTube videos to guide us we decided this was something we absolutely could do. To limit problems we ordered exactly the same make and model of batteries and took photos of every stage we unplugged.
We are feeling a little smug that we have managed to do something for ourselves and we now have a fridge that will keep ice solid for more than an hour or 2 - we are almost ready for the hot weather of Croatia and Italy.
After a great bank holiday weekend and first week back in the Dales, Richard is preparing for his multi day hike along the Dales Way and I am looking forward to a few days of predicted sunshine and hot lazy days doing absolutely nothing!
Hope you have all had a great week
Jackie and Richard
Malham is my go to destination to take visitors - it offers a lot in a relatively small area. I've also started on my garden renovations this weekend as the garden has now dried out enough to make it easy to work in. Look forward to seeing a video (perhaps?) of the garden work you have done.