O'er yonder...

Sadly, no, I haven't disappeared on a round the world trip. I'm still here. M and I managed to fit in a few nights away last week. There are still great big pockets of ignorance when it comes to my knowledge of all things Northern. When M mentioned Bradford I must admit I wasn't exactly filled with joy, it conjured up rather a different picture to that of camping bliss.

However, Bradford was where M needed to be for a couple of days so we eventually found a site that had space (should have taken that as a sign!). We arrived in a picture box village with beautiful window boxes everywhere, a lovely pub, a babbling brook... and a dreadful camp site with communal showers! The least said about the rest of it the better! Thank goodness we bumped into another couple who were also just leaving who recommended a nicer site five miles away. M made a phone call and phew, they had a space if we were quick. We were quick.

The site was terraced and it was a devil to get a long caravan pitched but it was well worth the effort because it looked out over hills and dales and the most amazing sunset every evening. My head was obviously not in blog mode because I didn't take a photograph! Argh! We were somewhere between Otley and Ilkley and the countryside was wonderful. Despite work in Bradford we managed a nice morning in Ilkley just browsing book shops and drinking coffee and chatting to small children... we concluded that M must have a friendly face because, on two separate occasions, a small child decided to strike up a conversation with him. In a cafe, a three year old, clearly bored with her mother and grandmother's conversation turned around in her chair and said, 'Hi, I'm Lucy'. When M cheerfully replied, 'Well it's very nice to meet you Lucy' she had an attack of shyness but recovered enough after a minute or two to have another go.

The other small child introduced herself as Bella. M agreed with her opinion that it was a very nice name. He explained that we had a daughter called Ella which sounded a bit similar (she disagreed) but that we sometimes call her, EllaBella. This was clearly the funniest thing she had ever heard and she went off chuckling heartily.

Indeed, EllaBella is doing the festival thing as I write. On the one hand it fills me with worry and on the other I am secretly glad that she is spending five nights in a tent and experiencing the delights of a single camping stove with no refrigeration facilities. This is a girl who would choose a hotel over wild camping any day of the week, unlike her Mother.

I dug out my Trangia cook set complete with meths burner. A visit to a camp shop for a new bottle of meths informed me that wow, these sets have gone drastically up in price since I bought mine, oops, that must have been at least 15-20 years ago. Jeez, time flies. I held out the set in front of E and asked her to guess how many cooking things it might contain (bear in mind the whole thing is about the size of a medium saucepan). She was miles off. I unpacked the three saucepans, the frying pan, the kettle and the windbreak/pan stand/burner unit, the meths burner and the handle for the pans and she did concede that it was pretty amazing.

Still not convinced that this tiny gold pot would heat enough water for an espresso let alone a pot noodle I had to do a demonstration on the patio. If this failed then she'd be paying £5 for a small frankfurter in a roll for her main meal every day (apparently this was the cheapest food at last year's festival). Not only was she surprised that it boiled a kettle of water, she was surprised that it was quick.

So last night I received the above pic, including boyfriends feet, of the stove boiling water for their packet pasta with the message, 'this thing is actually working!' Thank goodness these kids will never need real survival skills! I don't fancy their chances of making a shelter or starting a fire without matches.

All the river pictures were taken on a warm evening in Ilkley. I had to try and walk off a pint of cider (I'm such a lightweight these days). Unfortunately I kept pointing out that everything was 'lovely' but with a dodgy Northern accent, it wasn't my finest moment. Thankfully I kept quiet when a friendly older couple walked by and M had the most interesting conversation with them about the area. They were both Ilkley born and bred and still taking romantic, hand in hand, riverside walks after goodness knows how many years together (I think they were at least eighty). Their accents were almost indecipherable for me so M had to translate so that I didn't look like a complete idiot. Apparently the Heron was often at the same spot. They were also keen to let us know that if we came back in May then the woods 'o'er yonder' would be a carpet of bluebells. Oo, I bet those two had plenty of tales to tell!