A First Crop

Yesterday afternoon, I trotted out to the new garden vegetable beds to harvest the first of our home grown salad.

The mustard leaves had been doing so well, that I was concerned that they might bolt in the hot weather if I didn't harvest them soon.  

That is one of the great things about growing them in the garden. They don't get close to going to seed without me being aware, so there's less waste.

As you can see from the photograph, I harvested the larger leaves from half of the row, which provided two salad spinner baskets full.  It has a lovely peppery kick, so should make my salads a little more interesting over the weekend.

There were plenty of other leaves to pick, but I prefer to grow the fancy frilly varieties into full size heads of lettuce, as these are what I buy and eat on a regular basis and they are quite expensive. As a consequence, I'm not touching them for now.  I'll let you know when they're big enough to harvest.  

It feels good to finally be harvesting crops from the new vegetable beds. I'm keeping a tally of what I harvest to see how soon they start to pay for themselves. I've priced this mini harvest at £1.50, which I think is realistic for a bag of leaves. It will take a while to recoup the full cost, but I'm looking forward to more being ready.

Floral Explosion

 The garden seems to have come into it's own in the last week or so and is looking wonderfully wild and floral.

I'm not a partricularly tidy gardener, so I love this time of year the best for this little garden, as it is the month when next door's lovely climbing rose and my orange blossom entwine and provide flowers in abundance.  Such a lovely sight to greet me when I go into the garden, and they smell great too.

The bushes in this border also seems to be flowering too, with their stems of yellow blooms.

There is no stopping the foxgloves, which seem to have multiplied every time I go out and look at them.

Finally, the border of geraniums with it's one allium outside the kitchen door are also flowering and providing a carpet of pink.

Needless to say, I'm enjoying the moment and making the most of it, as it gets much less colourful as the year progresses.

Catch Up

It's been a hectic week so far this week.  After returning from Yorkshire, the weekend was spent doing more cleaning on account of the arrival of our visitors on Monday morning.  They arrived, gripped with jet lag from the flight from New Zealand, and were duly left to sleep it off.

Tuesday, I was back at the charity shop, having not slept at all the night before, partly due to a reaction to some beef mince I ate in a lasagne.  I haven't been eating this recently, having swapped to using turkey mince or Quorn mince, and I had a stark reminder of why I'd done this, as it just doesn't seem to agree with my digestive system.  I won't be using it again myself.

In addition, my lack of sleep was also due to the police loudly apprehending someone in the street outside in the early hours, with lots of shouting.  One of the joys of living in a large city.

Anyway, as a consequence, I felt like a zombie at the CS all day, and could hardly string a few words together.  Luckily, I was working in the back room, as the manager had decided to sort through 10 days worth of donations in one day, which had accumulated due to her being very short staffed the previous week, so the damage was limited. Thus, the day was spent with my head down or up, steaming, hanging, sorting, pricing donations, which was a relatively new departure for me, as I've often worked on the till whilst at the shop.

By the time I got home I was virtually asleep on my feet and had to retire to bed for half an hour or so to compose myself.  I almost felt as jet lagged as our guests, without having been on a flight.  After resting for a little while I felt a lot better and headed downstairs to make dinner.

After a good night's sleep, I'm feeling a lot better and today, is my first free day at home for a few weeks. I'm looking forward to spending it in a relatively leisurely fashion, whilst also tackling my ironing and laundry mountains and doing a few small tasks in the garden.

Camper Van Interior Tour

Although we are now safely back in London and have parted ways with the van, as promised, I took a few photos of the van, as we began our travels, just to give you some idea of our accommodation for the duration.

It's quite an old van, well over 20 years old, but runs well, is pretty reliable and very well equipped and fitted out.  It had all of the conveniences that we could possibly want, including a toilet, running cold water, fridge, gas rings, oven and grill and electric lighting and socket.  A little home from home really.

I love the way that camper vans utilise even the smallest space, making it pay it's way.  A lot of thought has obviously gone into their design, to make best use of every inch of space.

All of our personal items and food easily fitted into the storage cupboards and wardrobe.  Here's a few photos of the interior.

Kitchen area, complete with fridge full of food. The cupboards above the sink contain all of the crockery we needed on our travels and the small drawer to right the cutlery.

Dry food storage was plentiful in the cupboards above the seating along one side of the van.

Here's the seating bench below these cupboards, which converted to a single bed at night.  After the first night, I moved onto this bed which was much better for my back.

Up above the driver and passenger seats (behind these curtains) was a space for bedding during the day, that converted to a bed for LB at night.  There was a ladder to climb up there.

This table and seating benches also converted to a large single/small double bed at night, but made a great eating/sitting area during the day and had seatbelts for LB to travel safely in the back.

The dog was happy enough sleeping in her travel cage when we were moving around, but often slept on the seating bench itself when we were parked up.  She loved staying in the countryside and enjoyed looking out of the window at the ducks and rabbits roaming around the campsites.

Finally, here's the door to our small wardrobe and toilet. There was a heater below the wardrobe, but unfortunately it didn't work.  To keep warm on colder days we boiled the kettle or lit the grill, which soon warmed up the van.

The van provided great accommodation for us.  It could be a bit stressful at times, due to lack of space at busy times, such as mealtimes or when getting ready in a morning, but we generally found it to be perfectly adequate for our needs.  

Had the weather been fine enough to sit outside, there was also a table and chairs that we could use and an awning that we could pull out and sit underneath.

We would quite like to borrow the van again in the summer (hopefully with better weather), if it's convenient for OH's parents, of course, as the weather did spoil this trip slightly. We feel that it might be a very different experience in sunshine and warm weather. We'll have to see if it is possible and will keep you posted.

Camper Van Tales - Part 3 - Our Final Day

Our last complete day in the van, began with an early start.  OH wanted to go off for a bike ride and the dog, overexcited by being in the countryside, woke us up early wanting to go out and chase the rabbits she'd seen around the camp site.

I got up early too and headed out to the shower block, which was eerily quiet, but very warm.  I definitely beat the rush, as I had the place to myself.

Whilst OH was out cycling I hung out in the van, catching up on reading and writing a few blog posts.  When he got back, we tidied up, washed up and headed out of the campsite, ready for new adventures.

We drove up onto the moor.  It was still pretty foggy, as you can see from the photograph. Eventually, it started to clear a little and we stopped in a lay by  to go for a walk with the dog, down a track across the moor.

We couldn't believe how bitterly cold it was, but it was good to get out for a walk at last.

When we returned to the van, we made lunch before heading up to the northern tip of the North Yorkshire Moors in Guisbrough.  We stopped here to do a bit of top up grocery shopping, to get us through the final 24 hours in the van and then took a long and leisurely drive down Bilsdale and into Helmsley, a very pretty Yorkshire market town.  We didn't stop as we were en route to our next stop over, a site a mile or so out of Helmsley, where we parked up for the night.  We will probably go back and explore the town tomorrow, before we return the van to it's rightful owners.

Our site for Thursday night was the Golden Gate Camping Site, in Oswaldkirk.  It was a huge site, with lots of pitches for tents, tourers and campers.  It was a really popular site with families, but we were allocated a lovely quiet pitch out of the way, which was great.

We settled in and had a roast chicken and salad supper.  We'd bought a hot chicken from Morrisons in Guisbrough and it saved lots of messing about cooking.  Between us and the dog, it all got polished off, with a little left over for the dog's supper the following day.

The weather decided to perk up substantially today and there was even some sunshine, despite it still being a little cold, which made all the difference.

We walked the dog on site in a large field allocated for the purpose and spotted some good walks that we will take her on tomorrow before we leave.

Here's a picture taken from our camper van, looking towards the children's playground.  You can see the sun peaking out as it sets in the distance.

Tomorrow, we head back to OH's parents' house to return the van and this will signal an end to our little adventure.  Although the weather has been awful, we've enjoyed the experience in the van, and wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

The budget including diesel, food, site fees, eating out, etc. has been less than £250, which is far less than we would normally spend on a week away, albeit a couple of nights have been spent with relatives.  We've had electric hook up pitches each night and decent washing/waste/wifi facilities, so we've not really scrimped or scraped by, but it has made our trip much easier and more enjoyable.

Camper Van Tales - Part Two - Whitby

When we woke up in the van on Wednesday morning, the weather outside wasn't much improved.  It was cold, grey, drizzly and very misty. As a consequence, it didn't seem like a very good idea to go walking over the moors due to the limited visibility and after taking a shower and having breakfast, we decided to head to the nearby town of Whitby instead.

I'd  had a bad night, as I had suffered from a recurrence of severe back ache during the night, a condition that started a couple of weeks ago, but had improved considerably before we came away. I think, however, that being holed up in the van due to the inclement weather, had exacerbated it and it returned with a vengeance.

Consequently, getting out and about was vital, so Whitby it was.  In spite of my predicament, I managed to slowly climb the 199 steps up to the hauntingly beautiful Whitby Abbey.

We hadn't visited in over 10 years and in the intervening years, English Heritage had built a heritage centre and exhibition space on the site, which we paid to enter.

The Abbey itself was a wonderful place to visit and I enjoyed the audio tour that came free with our paid for admission.

After tea and cake in the Abbey Tea Rooms, we made our way back down to the town's many and eclectic little shops, many selling the infamous Whitby jet. I can remember buying a necklace charm made from this stone on my previous visit.  By mid afternoon we returned to the van for a late lunch and then moved on with our travels.

Late afternoon, we drove over the moors, via Goathland, to a new campsite in Rosedale.   The mist was still low causing visibility to be very limited still and we felt reassured that we'd made the right decision not to go walking today. Instead, we made our way to a new camp site in Rosedale for the evening.

Camper Van Tales - Part 1 - Robin Hood's Bay

Tuesday, after spending a couple of nights visiting relatives, we finally set off on our half term camper van adventure travelling around the North Yorkshire Moors National Park. We'd packed up the van a couple of days before, but hadn't actually stayed in it overnight as yet.

Mid morning we set off, stopping first in the town of Pickering to get a few provisions for our trip. It's a bustling little market town, home of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.  We didn't venture onto the railway today, instead we just stopped for a quick walk around and a bit of food shopping.

It was whilst we were here that the rain started, and carried on all day, so our first day in the van was a bit of a wash out.  We stopped en route to the coast and made ourselves some lunch in the van. It took a while to get to grips with food preparation, but once we'd worked out how to light the gas rings, we were okay and it was a nice big salad/sandwich, followed by Yorkshire curd tart and a nice cup of tea for lunch.

An hour or so later, we continued on our journey to the coast, and a camp site just outside of Robin Hoods Bay, where we could get an electric hook up.  We were super lucky, as we managed to bag a pitch due to someone leaving early on account of the bad weather.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent chilling in the van, whilst the wind blew and the rain poured outside.  Luckily, our spot was right next to the amenities block and these cute little wooden cabins that you can rent.  There was even a little food kiosk on the site where you could get hot food.

It was 7pm before the rain properly stopped and we were able to venture out.  We took the van down to Robin Hood's Bay for a brisk walk along the beach with the dog.  It was a bit misty as you can see from the photograph, but succeeded in blowing away the cobwebs. We followed it with a fish and chip supper. (How could we not?)

Robin Hood's Bay is a lovely little bay that you have to walk down steep little lanes to get to.

A very quaint village, with lots of little quirky fishermen's cottages for rent, small cosy looking pubs and small independent shops, which unfortunately had all closed for the day. Probably just as well really. 

Apparently, this village was larger than the nearby town of Whitby back in 1820 and was locally known as Baytown.

It was an interesting little excursion that we managed despite the terrible weather, and after which we returned to the camp site and cosied down for our first night in the van.

We're hoping for better weather tomorrow, so that we can venture up onto the moors.  I'll keep you posted.