Knaresborough, North Yorkshire

This morning the weather played ball. Dry and sunny once again. Perfect for our journey to North Yorkshire. This is the last weekend of the school summer holidays so the traffic was busy, but moving, and we'd made good time. A lunch stop at a little service area next to 'Pulse and Cocktails', an establishment for those who like their experiences enhanced! 4.9 on trip advisor! As we've saved around six hundred pounds on not paying for a ferry and travel insurance for France we are able on this holiday to treat ourselves.

So Angela found a nice little pub stopover a few minutes from Knaresborough for tonight. First though, a walk around the town.

Knaresborough is a spa town set on cliffs above the River Nydd. We immediately liked it. We walked to the castle taking in the 'view you must see and photograph', the words of the man in the heritage centre.

A concert band played in the grounds, and despite a chill wind many people sat and listened.We explored cobbled pathways, stopped at the only remaining thatched cottage in the town, visited the quaint railway station, walked alongside the river that ran through the gorge, explored alleyways and marveled at the 75ft high railway viaduct.

To end our day, a meal at the Kestrel pub, made even more enjoyable when Angela discovered she had a voucher given to her on her birthday that could be used at a vintage inn. Which The Kestrel was. Win, win. Reduced price meal, and decent safe stop for the night. Tomorrow, we will begin our Yorkshire road trip. We're excited, and Angela is a little anxious as some of the driving may be challenging.

But we live for experiences. And she's the one who says, 'feel the fear but do it anyway'! Talking of fear. You may notice photographs of Angela show her normal beautiful smile is somewhat lacking. She walked into a closed sliding patio door. Yes really. Her biggest fear is yet to come. The remains of her tooth will be extracted on September 22nd, the last day of our holiday. Something for her to look forward to, not.

Fir Tree Farm, Warmington, Warwickshire

The last month has been eventful. We have spent time with our family, which was nice, and not so nice we've had to prepare a house for new tenants after it was left in a right state by the outgoing tenants, who didn't think they needed to tell us they'd heard scratching from the attic during the winter. All that aside, we had our late summer holiday to look forward to. Scotland was our plan, but the forecast changed in the weather and the nights drawing in, we decided to leave Scotland for next spring and return to France. Fortunately, just as we were about to book our ferry we had the presence of mind to check how long we had left of our 90 days in Europe. Just five days! Oh dear. So plan B was put in place and we decided we might like to visit the Yorkshire dales, moors and the coast around Whitby. We are only able to be away from home for three weeks as we have another rental property to work on at the end of September. Hopefully Roland and his family haven't moved in to that one! Despite the change in the weather after a glorious summer. we are already thinking about adventures for next year.

Today we stopped enroute for John to purchase a lightweight tent which we will use when we return to walk a little more of the southwest coast path. It's always nice to be away in the van, and this evening despite the miserable weather fish fingers sandwiches and salad were the comfort food we needed. Tomorrow we will head to Yorkshire where we are hoping to be able to walk a lot and see some beautiful scenery. Fingers crossed the weather will be kind to us.

Poole, Dorset

Today is John's seventieth birthday. It is also the tenth day of celebrating this birthday. After a challenging coastal walk, a relaxing weekend camping in the new forest and taking in some art at Beaulieu today we were once again armed with walking poles and rucksacks, we say rucksacks, just small day packs actually, which were all we needed for our six and a half mile hike across the heathlands of Studland to Corfe Castle. First a bus to Wareham. Since realising how cheap bus travel is in our area we've become quite taken with this mode of transport. Of course John travels free, and Angela is three pounds per single journey, with the exception of our Portland to Weymouth bus journey which cost her a whopping 10p. Our walk today would cover a section of the Purbeck Way. Beginning in Wareham, of course fuelled by coffee and cake, our day packs bursting with goodies bought at Sainsburys for John's birthday lunch, we walked alongside the River Frome, the moored boats looking more cheerful in the sunlight than the gloom of a winters day when we sometimes walk this path. On the flood plain, young deer grazed, oblivious to our watching.

Following signs for the Purbeck Way we walked into Ridge village and then out into the heathland which is when we became somewhat lost.

Of course someone had removed the finger post which would direct us. So we went with our instinct and eventually ended up by the main road, crossing it and walking down to the parking area at The Blue Pool where we found somewhere to sit under the trees away from the crowds to eat a very nice lunch of cold meat, cheese, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, Spanish tortilla, bread sticks and fruit.

We had now once again picked up the signs for the Purbeck Way, venturing across boggy heathland and into the trees before being spat out into the noise and chaos of the Norden Farm campsite.

The path runs behind the site and through yet more trees bringing you out on a ridge that affords spectacular views of Corfe Castle. It's a view that you won't see from the road. Our reward for completing this walk, yet more unhealthy refreshment! The days celebrations not over, we took a bus back to Poole, tidied ourselves, and walked down to Poole old town for a meal at the Flavours of Asia Thai restaurant. It's a family run restaurant, and has become our favourite place to eat out at. What a day. Cards and presents opened. Cake and ice cream eaten, yet more steps to add to this moths total, and all topped off with a fantastic meal.

Poole, Dorset

Angela has many happy childhood memories of weekend afternoons picnicking, and playing cricket in the New Forest at Cadnam. Well not all happy. When she was around five years old, one of the cows grazing nearby put it's head through the rear window of the families Austin Cambridge car. Angela was sat on the rear seat and her reaction was not dissimilar to her wild camping experience at Scratchy Bottom last weekend! As the cows sauntered through the Long beech campsite yesterday evening she wondered if one of them may be a descendent of 'said' cow. Sixty years on, she gave them a wide berth.

This morning chicken of the woods, cut from a nearby fallen tree made for a special pre birthday omelette for John. Being here in the forest he's in fungi heaven, we've already planned to return back in the autumn to the area around Eyeworth Pond to see what delights the fallen trees up there have to offer.

Today's visit, a sculpture exhibition at Beaulieu National Motor Museum. Over two hundred exhibits displayed amongst the gardens and in the Palace. Each for sale, some with a very hefty price tag.

We enjoyed wandering amongst them, some interesting, others unusual, many, we couldn't see how they justified their price tag. Of course coffee and cake featured during the day. 

In the kitchen garden we spoke with a lady about the monumental task of tending the grounds with too few staff. By late afternoon, the day visitors now drifting away, and now full of ' very nice ice-cream', we walked around the museum. As always vehicles from our childhood lead to reminiscences. Sadly our weekend in the New Forest had come to an end, but we weren't ready to return home just yet. A Chinese takeaway eaten over by Hamworthy beach whilst watching the Lionesses take penalties on the phone via iPlayer, ended our weekend away. And what a great weekend it had been, especially with the culmination of England's women's football team beating Spain in the euros.

Longbeech Campsite, Fritham, New Forest (Day 2)

As Angela drifted off to sleep last night she could hear animals outside the van. Unlike last weekend she didn't have a meltdown, it was just the ponies nibbling at the short dry yellowing grass.

This was more her type of wild camping. After the exertions of last weekend we took a relatively flat walk out to the Royal Oak pub at Fritham, stopped for coffee.

We then walked to Eyeworth Pond with its pretty waterlilies, followed by a stroll through the fallen trees stopping to look at a variety of fungi and the old black post box erected in 1820 by the Shultze Gunpowder Factory which was sited in the area, before a gentle amble back to Margery, stopping by the donkeys, where one young one took to John, following him across the road. Sorry only room for two in Margery.

Our time here in the forest is just what we need, a bit of a rest before our lives become manic next week when it will be full on redecorating and tidying one of our rental houses. So tomorrow we will once again 'kick back'. Angela has planned a suprise trip to somewhere nearby as part of John's birthday celebrations. He'll be seventy, Angela is sixty five, and as we both agreed this afternoon, age is no a barrier to 'going for it' in life. We think we proved that on the South West Coast Path.

A bonus was the many fungi we found growing in the woods, especially the Tiered Tooth Fungus, a very rare find.