Holidays

For the first time in at least a couple of years, Elmo and I went on a holiday. I mean, we’ve been away, but mainly at folk festivals where we have responsibilities and our time is scheduled. But last weekend we went on a van trip in the Yorkshire Dales, with no itinerary besides our own whims. So here, regardless of it all having nothing to do with the Donated House, is a selection of photos of our holiday.

packhorse bridge at Wycoller village

This is the packhorse bridge near Wycoller village, just a bit north of us, where there’s a really beautiful derelict hall, built in something like the 17th C and only relatively recently abandoned, like, early 20th C, but thoroughly ruined just the same.

view from the tower

Round the corner and up the road from that we found a tower, the sort you see on the horizon and vaguely wonder what it is, only this was our holiday so we drove to it and walked up the hill to see. As it turned out, you could climb the narrow stone spiral staircase inside to the top and look out over the surrounding countryside.

cute, sweet, beautiful Elmo

We walked along the ridge a bit to another obelisk-monument-thing, with some good stones for leaping among.

first night's camping spot

The first night we camped at the side of a road that made a loop through the nothing-much alongside a main road down in the valley. It was lovely and peaceful before and after the one token car that always inexplicably comes along an otherwise totally abandoned road in the middle of the night.

rubbish public art

We spotted an odd looking stonework at the top of a hill by the road and had a look. It turned out to be a grand scale artwork involving spiral stone walls and viewing platforms overlooking the giant quarry below. Not exactly picturesque, but diverting.

Elmo at some stately home or other

We stopped for coffee and picked up a tourist leaflet for local gardens and spotted Parcival Hall, which I’d noticed a brown tourism sign for a while back, so we went there to see what it was like. Turned out to be nice, but not really worth the £6 each admission charge.

Elmo on the bridge near grassington

Near Grassington, where I’d been before to go swimming in the river, we walked the other way from the swimming place and found this little bridge across the river to an old mill which was converted into homes, but still very charming and interesting.

us and the river

It was a lovely morning and we managed to have coffee in Grassington early enough that it was not yet overrun by tourists.

the second night's camping spot

On the last night we camped right at the end of a road that went nowhere, just petering out to a track, barely passable by land rover, and nobody came by inexplicably in the middle of the night, though one person in a land rover came up at about 7 am and politely stopped short of us, turned around and drove away, presumably so as not to disturb us. It was a lovely view down over the valley in what will probably prove to be some of the last warm, sunny weather of the summer.

the beginning of the driveway

Back at Boggart Hall, we’ve been pretty relaxed, making almost no progress, but having a lovely, relaxing time. Francesco went back to Italy and a lovely guy called Ian came to visit, having found us on Google, and I’ve started to clear out the dumping ground that had accumulated at the back of the cabin so that I can build a porch, so hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll have some actual progress to report. Til then, back to the coffee drinking.

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