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.