This week marks a year since we finally got the keys to our Yorkshire Dales cottage! We can’t believe how time has flown and looking back on photos and around the house, how much we achieved in such a short space of time. We shudder when we think back to what it was like living in the cottage this time last year with storage heaters that did keep the house toasty through the night but ran out of heat by mid-afternoon so we had no heat source in the evenings. We laugh remembering the phone conversation with the local chimney sweep in mid-November, the earliest he could come out was the 3rd February and we did not dare use the open fire as it was completely sooted up. But all of that is now a distant memory and we live in a beautiful, warm cottage in a stunning part of the world.
Its good being home
It is already 3 weeks since we returned from our epic Rocky Mountain road trip and we have enjoyed the simpleness of retired life in the Dales. We have loved the slower pace of life and have simply pottered around the house, reading, cooking lovely meals, watching the fire and occasionally a bit of TV. We have enjoyed getting out walking in the hills, everything is so green after 5 weeks out on the high mountain prairies. We wanted a little bolt hole we could keep returning to in the countryside and that is exactly what we now have.
Christmas traditions
October is the time we have traditionally turned our thoughts to Christmas and get the cake tins out. We were a little bit behind in our cake and mince-meat making traditions this year due to our road trip and it was one of the first things we did when we got home. I love how the smell of the spices, brandy and fruit marinading permeates through the house. I also love sampling the first batch of mince pies just to make sure the recipe was ok! We did however resist our other tradition of having mulled wine with them as we are being good in our November reset. We always make 2 cakes, one for Christmas and the other to take skiing with us in the new year.
November reset
After 5 weeks on the road in an RV we had slowly slipped into the bad habits of eating empty carbs that were quick and easy to prepare, eating lots of salty snacks and having a wine or 2 most nights. We did lots of hiking so kept up our fitness but our strength fitness was none existent, so we have set our selves a November reset challenge which have we documented weekly on our YouTube channel to keep our selves accountable. Richard is doing soooo much better than me, it seems my will power is not strong!
Covid finally caught up with us
After three and a half years, we think Covid finally caught up with us. Richard was poorly about a week after we returned from the States. Probably infected during our 9hr delay at a very busy Heathrow Airport. I then spent 3 days in bed the week after with all the classic symptoms, fingers crossed that is it for the winter now. It seems quite remarkable that we were both in busy school environments throughout most of the pandemic and did not, to our knowledge, succumb to it.
Visitors
We have really enjoyed having visitors this week, we spent a fab few days in the company of a family from my days as a primary school teacher. We loved exploring the Dales with them and showing off our new home. The children were fascinated by the Hoffman Kilns and we took them to Malham Cove as they are all avid Harry Potter fans. They loved watching the Deathly Hallows after, knowing they had followed in the footsteps of Harry, Ron and Hermoine! We spent a great couple of evenings chatting, cooking and catching up with them - the simple things in life are just so rewarding.
The comfort of our wood burning stove
We are both in agreement that the best thing about the cottage renovations is having a wood burning stove. There is no gas in the village, so the house has no central heating and the stove is our main heat source. With the dark nights and wet, wild and stormy weather of the last few weeks it has been absolute heaven settling down in front of the warm glow of the fire. We did feel guilty that we have been lighting it in the late afternoon which obviously uses more wood, however we have rationalised it that we are also not putting any more logs on after about 8pm because it is so efficient and we are in bed by 9.30! Our electricity bills may be very economical but I feel that our log bill will not be!
Escape to the country
Way back in April, just as we were in the last stages of the renovations we were approached by a researcher from Escape to the Country asking if we would like to submit a short self filmed clip about our early retirement relocation to the Dales. We said yes and sent off the clips they asked for. A couple of weeks later we had a phone call saying they were filming in Yorkshire and could they come with Nikki Chapman to film on location as they liked the clips we had sent. A slightly different proposition, but we said yes. They were lovely and the final clip was aired last Tuesday, it was very strange seeing ourselves on the TV but it was a lovely short video of our new lives in the Dales.
Feeling Old – our youngest child is now a home owner!
In our hearts, we both still feel like 20 year olds so it came as quite a shock that we are parents of two adults in their mid 20’s and one of them is now officially grown up and sensible having bought a house!
Luke and Charlotte put their offer in on the lovely little cottage way back in April and only completed at the beginning of October, which was while we were in the US. It was so nice visiting their new home and our cats Albie and Lola have settled in really well with them. Bless them, since we sold our Cheshire house 18 months ago they have had a few moves but hopefully this will now be their forever home. The house is so nice, infact, if we hadn’t relocated to the Dales we would probably have been bidding against Luke as it is exactly where we would have been looking to move when we downsized from our family home!
Flooding in the Dales
Seemingly, the wet weather of the summer returned to the Dales for a week. Storm Ciaran was quite feisty and caused havoc cutting off our village for 24 hours. We did try on Tuesday to go into Settle but had to turn around as the flood waters were so high. A couple of cars did make their way through but the water was up to the top of their tyres, not a risk we were willing to take with our beloved Nelson. But every cloud has a silver lining, when we were turning around, the most vivid double rainbow appeared across the valley and we took some great photo’s of the floods! Luckily there is a long way around to get out of the village, so we did manage to get to Settle to buy some more firewood. Phew!
A year in our Yorkshire Dales cottage
As I mentioned earlier, this week marked a year since we got the keys to the cottage. I will put a few photo’s to show the transformation with this weeks blog and hopefully we will get around to writing a blog about our first year in the Dales soon.
So hopefully we should be back in full swing with our weekly blogs now we have got back into a routine after our travels. Weather depending, we are hoping to escape for a couple of days hiking in the Lakes next week and then seemingly we are in the hectic run up to Christmas. I am not sure where we ever found the time to work?!?
Have a great week
Jackie and Richard
Lovely to see you on Escape to the Country - pleased I had identified your village correctly ;-) Ann