We headed out to Settle for an overnight camping birthday party desire the weather forecast of fuck loads of rain. Turns out they were wrong. Instead there were fucking shit loads of bastard rain. At one point I’m sure the farmer was bringing in animals two by two.
Eventually a third of the site flooded and we couldn’t get out until the water subsided overnight. We are though English so we don’t allow such thing to put us off.
We had a bbq, I drank too much wine and the kids had a blast.
I should also point out I was in the van whilst everyone was in tents. Dry and toasty.
From there it was 90 miles across yorkshire to Pickering for a quick layover and a family party. The site has great wifi and they delivered breakfast sandwiches so the boys said its the best site ever!
Next stop …well come back in a few days to see…need to get packed up and hit the road.
The youngest was at a party and playing cricket so the eldest and I headed out west to Kirkby Lonsdale. There is a rugby club there I wanted to check out that offer camping and we headed the sixty or so miles cross country to see what the score was.
Well we were indeed most surprised. The site was itself fairly standard fair but my god the views, walks and pubs were magnificent…
Look…see..All of that was within a few minutes of the site and the river view is one described by the artist Turner as one of the most beautiful in England (and therefore the world).
That was mostly Saturday, we wandered, went to the pub for tea instead of cooking, and sat around in the sun which was out for the first time in weeks.
Sunday Morning we packed up and headed to Morecombe to start a leisurely drive home. Alas I chose to take the scenic route and I lost both wing mirrors of the SpiderVan on a particularly narrow with a particularly carelss oncoming driver. Fortunately it was just the casings that broke so pretty cheap to replace. Scary as hell though when we hit his vehicle and a telephone pole at the same time. Or did he hit us? More his fault tbh – he was driving the sort of vehicle only driven by men with small cocks.
Some gaffer tape fixed her right up though.
Morecombe has a certain melancholy and sadness about it, but worth a wander about and I think it’s somewhere I would like to return to in winter as I do love a bleak run down seaside town.
Anyway after that we figured next up Blackpool for a spot of lunch before heading home. Ive been to blackpool once before, at night, and the famous illuminations were kinda cool and there were a lot of folk enjoying it and it had a fun if somewhat past its best vibe.
Foolishly this time I went in the day time.
What a shit hole. If it was a man it would be a once fun and charismatic ex who is now long past his best and who sits in his favourite chair with his gut spilling onto his lap, his hand in his pants caressing his unwashed penis and who longingly reminisces about the time he fingered Stacey Cooper at your cousins house party.
Needless to say we just kept driving and headed to a services to grab a Subway instead before heading home.
So all in all a lovely day and a half away and I will definitely be heading back to Kirkby Lonsdale and Morecombe…
Took the van out to the Vale of Pickering this weekend and met up with the extended family. It was only for a couple of nights but probably the first time we have properly set everything up including the all importing bunting and quaint lighting.
First night we just had a barbeque and a few gins which was all rather civilised and the next day it was out to Thornton Le Dale for a walk out into the countryside and to let the kids thrash around in a river for a while.
The van continues to delight and really getting used to living in it now and a second crack at the inflatable awning proved to be pretty easy.
Mrs Afterwards family are from Pickering so it’s a place we know well but it was our first trip to Thornton le Dale and as you can see from the pictures it is as quaint as hell…
Anyway I know you prefer the pictures so here you go…
Afterwards 