When we were teachers we used to count down the weeks to this half term, planning what trip we might make as the weather is generally good. It sort of came up on us by surprise this year! The most noticeable thing being the crowds wherever we went, especially on the roads. Our journey to and from the Lake District took us twice as long and the campsite was heaving even though we had left on a Friday lunchtime.
Last couple of days in the Lake District
The weather was very kind to us over the bank holiday and we had such an amazing few days hiking and wild swimming in the lakes. The last Wainright we hiked was the final straw for my legs, we had walked over 70km and climbed over 3700m in elevation (almost half an Everest). Borrowdale is one of our favourite areas to explore and it did not disappoint.
Nursing home visits and gardening
Wednesday was spent making sure Richard’s mum was all set for us being away for a few weeks. We had a day touring the county sorting out some of her banking jobs, tidying up her house and gardens and then the highlight of our week, visiting her in her home. We feel so fortunate that the place she was sent for her 6 week assessment offered her a permanent placement as it truly is an amazing home for her. The staff are always warm and friendly and the other residents are a delight to spend time in their company. We are now greeted like old friends, get a kiss and a hug from most residents and enjoy listening to them talk about their lives. Sadly most have dementia so live sometime in the distant pass, they can tell us about their weddings and old working lives, but cannot remember our names or where they are!
Roman blind making
I am still on the quest to finish the blinds and curtains for the cottage. This week I followed YouTube instructions on how to make roman blinds. There was certainly quite abit of tweaking and resowing of some sections as we want them to fit in the recess of the kitchen window, but we are nearly there. I ran out of time to sew the loops and thread the cords but I am happy that they should work and they fit well in the space so photo’s will be forthcoming when we get back from Europe.
Preparing for a long trip
Thursday was pack up day. It’s like a military operation packing Nelson, the van, for a few weeks on the road in Europe. It always surprises us how much can be squeezed into a relatively small space! We have a series of boxes and baskets to organise ourselves which are crammed full. We try to plan for most eventualities, hiking, biking, hot weather, wet weather… My biggest fear is getting to the port and not having the correct documents or the van being searched and us unknowingly have some kind of contraband now that there all sorts of new non EU rules, so everything is checked and double checked. We stayed at my mums on Thursday night as we won’t see her for a few weeks which was nice.
The Traveller way of life
Appleby Horse Fair is a huge date in the traveller calender and part of the tradition is for the families to make their way to the Northern Dales over a couple of weeks with the traditional horse driven caravans. This is something we had not come across before and were surprised to see so many parked up on the sides of the roads with all the horses. Once or twice this week we have come across long lines of traffic as they follow the slowly moving parade heading north. The locals say our village has been a stop off on their jouney for many years and it was quite an awesome sight to see so many of the ornately decorated vehicles in one place.
A mini cruise
After a pretty arduous journey down to Portsmouth (6 ½ hours to do a 4 hour trip) we finally boarded the ferry to Santander. We always say the worst part of any of our European trips is the journey south to the port, and yet again this was the case.
The ferry trip was more like a mini cruise, we were on the boat for 2 nights and had our own 4 bed ensuite cabin. It was a brand new ferry and everything was spotlessly clean, so much better than I had imagined. Trying to keep to a budget, we had packed lots of picnic goodies and mum had set us up with some bbq cold cuts, so we ate like kings. The ferry was also surprisingly not too expensive and a nice cold white wine was only €3.30, a fab supplement to our picnic!
We chose the Santander ferry as our plan is drive back up the French Atlantic coast taking in the Pyrenees and the many beaches. The ferry was a lot more expensive than the Dover Calais route but we figured that it saved us a couple of hundred pounds in Petrol, a fortune in tolls and at least a week in time. We have already tweaked our plans and headed inland to the Picos de Europa, a Spanish national park with the most stunning mountains and rivers. This is an area we had never heard of, but it was recommended to us at the weekend by a fellow camper in the Lake District. So far we are not disappointed and spent Sunday afternoon hiking and exploring before parking up in a glorious location for the night. A great start to our trip
100,000 miles on the clock!
This week saw Nelson go over the 100,000 miles on our journey down to Southampton. 100,000miles of fun and adventures. The van has been our 2nd home for 14 weeks, our place to escape in on weekends when we were working and our explorer van on longer European trips. It was probably a big part of our drive to retire early as we have such a huge bucket list of places we want to visit and now the time to do it. Here's to the next 100,000 miles.
We are working hard to keep the mindset that we are simply travelling for a few weeks, not on holiday. So the wine cupboard is empty and we have a budget of €150 a week to try and keep to. We’ll see how that goes!
Next weeks blog will hopefully be from sunny Spain as we celebrate not being in school for the last term of the year, and definitely not report writing which was almost nemesis at this time of year!
Apologise yet again for the tardiness of the blog, we seem to keep choosing destinations with no signal!
Jackie and Richard
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