Terrafirma Travels

Up a bit earlier, away by 10am. The campsite was v good esp facilities block. 30 mins to St Ives. And what a good day we had. The place was heaving despite the time of year and not half term for state schools. Electronic sign on entry said our target Barnoon Long Stay was full already. Just squeezed into Porthmeor Beach, max 3 hrs. L went Tate v nearby, N went walkabout on SW Coast Path round edge of town. Beautiful beaches and interesting fishing harbour complete with seal. L went to Barbara Hepworth, excellent apparently. N eschewed the town museum as still not raining despite threatening clouds, and walked around the town, visited church, even went to see Alfred Wallis grave though not a fan of his naive style.  Met up back at Tate and lunched in the 4th floor restaurant. Small but surprisingly not busy. Lovely view, lovely soup, lovely decaf leaf tea. Moved van to The Island car park which required a hair-raising drive through the centre of town including one wheel on pavement ...

Woke up v late, breakfast at 10am. Much less hazy, clear blue sky, much better view of Longships lighthouse. Drove 15 mins to Cape Cornwall NT car park. The Cape is wonderful, just as we'd hoped - scenic, fairly empty, and dry. Did the 45 minute walk around the headland, that's another few hundred metres of the SW Coast Path done. Lunch made in van with splendid views.  Saw a buzzard on the wing, tried & failed to get a photo, then he landed on a post across the valley - this is 30x mag. and cropped. Drove 30 mins to Penzance, parked by harbour. L is feeling the effect of the jabs more than N, she has aches & fatigue. L soldiered through some charity shops while N spent rather longer over his tea and mince pie flavoured flapjack. Then it was N who purchased charity jeans, shirt and book. Most unusual.  30 min drive to CAMC site Godevry Park which is like all other CAMC sites - very tightly organised with excellent facilities. As usual we chose a pitch and orientation s...

Nic had his first online meeting with the ReStart trial management group. Forecast looks OK, so swift packing and not so swift booking sites. Both of us had Flu and Covid jabs, then we pointed the van westwards. The A38 was OK, and the A30 was great. The Trevedra campsite is excellent, being just off the A30, near Sennen, behind/above Gwynver beach with sea views ... and almost empty. Coffee and cake in their cafe/shop. The site with one facilities block stays open all winter. Walked down towards the beach. But not all the way down. Traversed south and onto Escalls Cliff, an NT area with two ponies, where we had splendid birds-eye views of both Gwynver and Sennen beaches. A few people on the latter in the water, too late and windy for us. A kestrel was working the area around us and at one point hovered just over our heads, motionless despite the blustery wind. Of course every time I reached for the camera he dipped a shoulder and dived away. Briefly sat outside in our chairs watching ...

11-14 Oct - oops, forgot to write this up at the time.  11 Oct: Nic had online meeting, then after early lunch went into Manchester centre on train. The hustle and bustle was quite a shock to the system, esp Piccadilly Gardens. Manchester Art Gallery, Nic settled with cake and book. Charity shops, of course. Retreated to peaceful Gatley and ornamental cat. 12 Oct: Lesley had online meeting, then to Lytham to Matt's new house and new baby Jude, 10 days old. The house is a-maz-ing, as is the DB6 parked out front. Matt rustled up a vegan meal and we had an absolutely lovely time. Went to front for a brief stroll and got Whelan's chips, all for old time's sake. 13 Oct: Altrincham Market for brunch and a mooch. It was heaving. What cost of living crisis?! Then to Dunham Massey and round the house for a change - we've done the gardens and deer park before. House excellent. Meanwhile Jules arrived to take over staffing the cat. Got a takeaway from the new local Italian - tast...

Forecast dry & cold, so went to Peak District for a modest walk. Drove east from Gatley to Edale. 30 mins to reach countryside, around Lyme (NT, must visit next time), then 30 mins of glorious views. The Pennine Way starts at Edale, a very pretty hamlet. We visited the church, where an organist was trying to learn a carol, and the Visitor Centre. We started the Pennine Way, gently up for about an hour from the car park. We turned around when it went down, as we'd have to come back up. We didn't have time or fitness for a circular. Splendid scenes in all directions.  Had an ice cream at Newfold Farm cafe - they are one of a number of campsites in the Hope Valley area. It would lovely to bring the van here for a week; so many walks. Parked on hillside for second lunch with views. Back to No 38 and an enthusiastic cat, in time for tea and 2 more Crowns.

Started by taking KP to Gatley station. Manchester airport charge even for a drop-off now, and KP didn't want to give them the pleasure. Then Cheadle Sains for our food shop. Now we're solely in charge of The Barnster ... or rather, we're his replacement staff. It's rainy all day so we settled in for lots of lovely telly. Barney joined us, but he wasn't really watching. We have a long Netflix list, particularly The Crown; we watched 2 episodes of that and then Scoop and then the film Nyad - all excellent. To bed with square eyes.

A last lovely breakfast and a reluctant goodbye to Ann, and avoiding a long conversation with Richard at the Bield, saw us on our way out of the Lakes. The long way round via Bowness as a lorry crash had blocked our usual route. Lesley made a sandwich in the van at Lancaster services. We just bought what Costa laughingly call a coffee - it's more like warm milk. Arrived No. 38 on schedule at 1pm. KP very well organised for their trip, as we expected, so no last minute panics from them. A gentle afternoon catching up, including with Barney for whom we'll be staff for the next 5 days. 

As the forecast promised, the rain that set in last night is with us this morning. Ann went to Shaw's which was an opportunity at last ! We also enjoyed a leisurely bath. Reading separated elevenses of plum bread, cheese & apple from lunch of soup with bread taken from yday at Green Housekeeper.  The sky cleared a bit, again precisely as forecast ... what is going on? Not nice enough for an effort to drive somewhere, so walked over to Elterwater via the woods and Chapel Stile. Beautiful view up the Langdale valley. 1hr30. An excellent pint of (rare) draught stout at The Britannia, shared between us because they had no sherry.  Back the direct route up the lane and coffin track, bought 5 pieces of cake - 1 to share today and 4 for Manchester. 1hr. Lovely peaceful, sunny late afternoon. Had tea on Ann's bench, drinking the valley view.

6 Oct: Not raining as promised. Hurrah. Looked for barn owls in top barn with Ann; plenty of poo evidence but no birds. Lesley took a hydrangea cutting. Parked NT on Coniston Road and walked up Tom's Gill to Tarn Hows - longer, steeper and more slippery than we remembered. Elevenses on The Bench which is very brambled behind, will need secateurs when put Audrey's plaque on the back to join the others. Brief misting rain eased so continued round - it is almost 2 miles in total. Quick loo stop for Lesley and left boot off for Nic. Different route to car cos didn't fancy Tom's going down. Went down exit road, the footpath through yard of Tarn Hows NT cottage, and through Herdwick populated fields to car park. Excellent. It was very busy with walkers so we thought Coniston would be stuffed, as was Ambleside yday. However we slid into a perfect parking space opposite the vintage place (which was closed) and slid into the last 2 seats in the Green cafe and ordered their won...

5 Oct: Saturday started with porridge. Lesley got set up with the computer and laptop in the living room for her 3 hour Zoom class on Poetry Film. It was good but tiring. Nic experimented with his glitchy hearing aids and read. After lunch Ann took us around to the newly empty Bield, having got permission from the owner Richard. It was quite drab and felt heavy with damp and decay. Whoever buys it will have 100 thousand pounds of work to do to make it liveable as a Grade 1 property. Ann stayed there talking for ages, a rare chance for her to remember Josefina. L took some pics of the panorama of the Lakes painted by Delmar around one room, and J's sculptures. It is probably the last time we will see inside. We drove to Ambleside and lucked out finding a parking place in a stuffed car park with cars circling like wolves. We found the walking poles Nic wanted in a Mountain Warehouse shop. Walked to Stock Ghyll, had tea & cake up there in new cafe terrace with a view across Ambl...

4 Oct: Forecast good, no other commitments, so a long day out with sandwiches and a flask. Lesley was driver-of-the-day. An hour to NT car park at Rosthwaite via Keswick, capacity less than 20 and we got the last space. On the way down Derwentwater we eyeballed the car park which looked on Googlemaps satellite to be perfect for swimming, it's right by the beach, but alas the NT has put up a barrier at 1.9m and we are 2.1m - aagh. The drive through Borrowdale is beautiful; flat, wide (for the Lakes) with towering, rounded tops both sides. Love it. We followed walk 10 in Ann's book Walk The Lakes - we'd forgotten to bring any of our books! It took us through Stonethwaite and up the valley of Stonethwaite Beck on the NE side past Bull Crag, stony enough to have to look down a lot. We crossed Greenup Gill and then Langstrath Beck in the shadow of Eagle Crag. There was some high jeopardy stone step balancing across muddy bits. Nic saw a red squirrel for about 2 seconds. The retu...

3 Oct: The day started with a slapup cooked breakfast. Then we drove to Rydal water to try to find a way in to swim. However we could not find a route from White Moss car park, the only car park anywhere near. We did find the River Rothy but it was only calf deep. So we sighed and set a course for Windermere and parked the van at the usual car park at Waterhead, changed and went for a swim from the small beach at the end of the park.  It was quite shallow and not cold. We swam to a moored boat and back. The morning was warm and sunny- the most perfect autumn day. We changed and had coffee and a bagel sitting on a bench in the sun. Lovely.  Swimming here Not swimming here! Off to Grasmere, where the big Stock Lane car park was full, choked with coaches, but luckily we parked free of charge in the village for an hour, and walked up to Allan Bank, another of Wordsworth's many houses. It is very unlike most NT properties, devoid of furniture and trappings but with extraordinary vi...

2 Oct:  All our local traditions in the first day. A lovely porridge and toast breakfast. Walked around the valley, clockwise, with stops to admire the view and pick blackberries; 1hr 40mins. Lunch of open sandwiches at Ann's. Walk up the cake farm lane and through woods towards Quarry, then back same way. Purchased cakes and picked a lot more blackberries.  Tea with Ann, more family and Langdale catchups. Read books by the fire. Dylan visited his Anma on his motorbike, at 16 he's turned into a nice young man. We cooked our dinner on Ann's Rayburn, veg ratatouille and pasta. Watched first episode of '2012' - Nic's gift to Lesley, then a doc on Katherine Hepburn. Avoided the news because it's all too terrible in the Middle East. The bed here is so comfortable - Nic needs a softer mattress at home.

We weren't sorry to say goodbye to Pettycur when we finally drove away from the campsite at 0930. It had been a noisy night next to the main road. Straightforward drive to Leighton Moss, with a short stop at Annandale services, which was a more pleasant experience than most services are. We were shopping for binoculars, and a helpful assistant showed us a range of options. We ended up spending more than planned, and tested the new purchase at several hides on the site. No exciting birds on the water, just the usual suspects, though Nic did see a bearded tit in a tree, and Lesley saw a longtailed tit. We drove to Windermere for the usual Booths shopping expedition, and had a 'Lytham tea' i.e. dinner at 5pm at the Elleray hotel, which was surprisingly good pub food. Then the van had its first foray into Little Langdale, and the narrow twisty lanes around it. We arrived at the High Bield before Ann, who was cooking for Robert's kids, unloaded the van and sat down by ...

30 Sep: After a night on the slide for Lesley we were up, breakfasted and out in a couple of hours ... we're beginning to establish a routine. The Pettycur facilities block is cold so no showering - a wet wipe will do. There's no site facility for motorhome waste water so we just opened the tap and drove off ... it mixed with the rainwater. A quiet day with Felix and Bootsie in the flat. Much playing,  stroking and feeding treats to Bootsie. We cooked fried chicken with three veg. Much catching up with this and that, and the usual oddball TV programmes. Back at Pettycur in the dark again, we went onto a different pitch that we'd eyeballed in the morning; it was more level but right by the very noisy road. We won't be using Pettycur again, too many problems.