Category Archives: UK

We spend the next four days recovering from our long trudge. I’ve never been this sunburnt in my life. I didn’t even know you could get sunburnt in the UK. I would dearly love to have a shower after our hot, sweaty hike but the best I can manage is a sponge bath a couple of days later. When I … Continue reading

An early start (well, for us), and we drive into the little village of Ambleside, all cute slate cottages and outdoor gear shops. We park in the overnight motorhome parking area, whip up some sandwiches, dutifully put our wet weather gear in the pack despite the summery day unfolding outside, put our hiking boots on, and set out for the … Continue reading

We set out towards the Lake District, scooting around Manchester and then back amongst the emerald fields that are becoming so familiar. Some scouting ahead I did in Google Earth while sitting in a supermarket car park along the way revealed a few possibilities for wildcamping by Lake Windermere, so that’s where we are headed. The roads narrow, and soon … Continue reading

To the frustration of my itchy feet, we ended up spending almost a month perched on the outskirts of Birmingham attending to life-overhead — dentist checkups and a Nettle check-up. Eight hundred pounds later and Nettle has new shoes (what those with less anthropomorphised vehicles might refer to as “tyres”). We spent some time before her check-up feeling anxious that … Continue reading

So far in this leg of our journey, we’ve planned to take things fairly easily. One of the surprises of the past year and a half has been the prominence that our projects has taken: Katherine’s art, and my software development. We both take great enjoyment in “working” — as much, and possibly more, than the actual travelling around. This … Continue reading

…Just like that, we’re motorhomers again! We’ve spent a fairly relaxed few days preparing Nettle and ourselves for our reunion — a bit of mould-removal (bloody mould!!), fridge-cleaning, reorganising our stuff, and cleaning the water tank — which involved an interesting little indoor flood when a plastic widget broke (there’s always something!). We repeatedly postponed our departure, waiting on our … Continue reading

Spring has sprung, which means it’s time to say goodbye to Lygos Farm and venture out into the big wide world again. We have mixed feelings about this. We’ve really enjoyed working steadily on our projects and all of the comforts of living in a house. We’re a bit worried that going back to live in Nettle is going to … Continue reading

As I write this, I feel stupidly lucky. This house-sit really couldn’t be any more perfect. It’s quite literally, everything we were hoping for in a house-sit. It’s nestled in a valley amongst gently rolling hills in the picturesque Welsh countryside. The property and surrounding countryside has a generous smattering of those trees with the curly branches that I so … Continue reading

As Katherine said in our last entry, we weren’t too keen on the idea of travelling or being ‘out in the open’ during winter. This was especially true after seeing what late autumn’s rainfall did to the site we were staying on in Truro: It was a miracle that we escaped the boggy mire at all! So, imagine our glee … Continue reading

Well, we’ve finally done it and left Cornwall! When we decided to settle down in Cornwall for a bit and get some work done, neither of us anticipated we’d be there for six months! Until recently, we hadn’t any idea what we were going to do over winter. We didn’t particularly fancy travelling during winter, but nor did we want … Continue reading

Kennall Vale Mills in Cornwall is the site of an old gunpowder mill that was shut down in 1914 and has been reclaimed by the woods around it. We visited it in summer with friends and resolved to return in autumn, as anything pretty in green is even prettier in shades of yellow, orange and red! I’m reading Robin Hobb’s … Continue reading