Best Of
Re: What are you all up to
Had a lovely morning today. We had a free morning so as the weather was settled we decided to stay fairly local and go for a walk with some added interest and settled on a walk that would start at Basingwerk Abbey ruins and end up at St.Winefrides Well in Holywell. The walk is now a cycle way as well and tarmac so quite decent underfoot, just as well as there was quite a bit of frost and ice still underfoot. It's about 2 miles between them, uphill along a former railway track that led to a Gunpowder factory (surprisingly in ruins now🤣). It's many a year since we've visited both so I refreshed our memory yesterday by watching an interesting Youtube video about the Well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifj3e_ftU4s
A few photos from the walk.
Another lovely iron fence en route.
Murals of St.Winefride and St.Bueno
Some colonnades surrounding the Well.
The Well itself
There is an area for immersing yourself outside the Well area as the site is visited to this day by approximately 40,000 Visitors and Pilgrims. St.Winefrides Well reportedly holds the distinction of being the longest continually visited Pilgrimage site in the UK.
The remains of the Franciscan Abbey, Basingwerk Abbey. It is open to the public free of charge should anyone wish to visit it.
Some of the structure is still in good shape.
Re: What are you all up to
@nelliethehooker re Sir Nigel…..no, we were just walking up station ramp and heard the unmistakable hoot a a steam train whistle, then some chuffing, clouds of steam and it was just rolling down platform we were on. Looked up what it had been doing, a Saphos Train Experience to York from Peterborough. There’s a wonderful video of it arriving in York, and leaving Doncaster on YouTube, Crunchy Nut Steam Trains. I will see if I can add a link….
Re: What are you all up to
First daffs of the season at the storage yard. Strangely no snowdrops yet
Oneputt
Re: What have you seen
There have been lots of Tawny Owls calling around the Blackmore site, both in the evening and the early morning before sunrise.
There are still a few bunches of Fungi about. We say this group yesterday atop a gate post at Croome Park.
Re: What are you all up to
@KjellNN we made our back room/kitchen area into an open plan when we put our stove in. It’s usually fine with just the stove going, but we also have a doorway into hall from kitchen, and as heat rises, we lose some into hall and up the stairs. So a couple of years ago, when energy prices shot up, we put a thick curtain across this doorway, and on really cold nights, we use this curtain so that we are only heating the room we are sat in. What a difference it made. We have heating on from 9pm to warm rest of house, at least the bedroom we use and the bathroom, and open the curtain to let stove heat circulate as well. We use thick lined curtains across all doors and windows and this helps hugely as well. Even a portable screen might help target heat to where you might spend most time, unless of course you have underfloor or just radiators.
We had a nice walk yesterday, round RSPB Old Moor. Didn’t spot much out of ordinary, but the fresh air and exercise was nice. Today has mainly been spent booking some events for later in year, we have afternoon tea booked on both a steam train and a canal barge later in year, football tickets for end of this month. Have to say, some of the booking platforms are atrocious. We had to phone to sort out both trips, and the football tickets😡 Pleasant human beings sorted things in no time. So much for high tech😵💫
RSPB Old Moor. Frozen solid, bitterly cold, but a nice day. Not much around, but we did pick up three interesting books in the second hand book area.
Re: Driving licence 3.5t limit - gov't petition for increase of cat B to 4.2t
Please avoid any personal criticisms and digs, etc Do stick to the main point of the discussion to avoid deletions, edits, or the thread being closed.
David
DSB
Re: New Van since August 2025
Hi everyone, I haven't gone away, I've just been somewhere else. 🤣
I have some more impressions for you. This time we did a tour of North Holland.
Our first stop was Ditzum at the mouth of the Ems River, still in Germany but right on the Dutch border.
In Ditzum there are two campervan pitches, both of which are really good. Everything you need is there. Due to the time of year, it wasn't very busy anywhere. We were almost always alone on the pitches. German campers seem to be wimps. Not us.So we continued from Ditzum to Delzijl in the Netherlands. Delzijl is a small coastal town at the mouth of the Ems River on the Dutch side. It's also worth a visit. The next day we drove on to Leeuwarden. There we stayed overnight in a small marina within the city limits. The location is truly beautiful. The following day we continued towards Ülsen (Lower Saxony) in Germany. There, too, we found a wonderfully well-maintained campervan site with plenty of space for our two dogs to run around. Unfortunately, it was then time to head home, as Kerstin, unlike me, still has to work. So, whenever possible, we like to take short weekend trips.
By the way: I'm currently deep into planning our next trip to the UK. In June, we're heading to your beautiful island via Harwich. As soon as I've made more progress with the planning, I'll let you know exactly where we're going. We're planning for a three-week stay.
Here are a few impressions from our short trip to Holland:
Ditzum
Motorhome pitch
Ditzum Harbor
Ems Barrier. This is where the large new ships from the Meyer shipyard pass by.
Delfzijl (NL)
Motorhome pitch
Delfzijl city
The Ems estuary into the North Sea. The German side is in the background.
The famous Emshotel. It looks a bit like an oil platform. 🤣
The small beach of Delfzijl
Leeuwarden (NL)
Motorhome pitch
Almost all properties have their own boat dock.
And now our last stop on the short tour
Ülsen
I hope the photos aren't annoying you. Otherwise, please let me know.
Warm greetings from the continent
Edgar & Kerstin
Edgar
Re: What are you all up to
Happy Anniversary @Bakers2 - hope you have a lovely day.
Just got back from Hull Royal - no sign of any snow there but as soon as I was back within 5 miles of home - it was snowing again and still below freezing. The roads around our house are pretty treacherous although the main roads are OK. Thank goodness for the All Terrain tyres on my car😀
Good news from the vascular guy - the scan revealed that the small aneurysm in the artery behind my other knee hasn't changed in two years - so don't need to go back for another two years.
Re: What are you all up to
The Heddon Valley was featured on Countryfile last night. We did that walk many times down to Heddons Mouth as we holidayed in that area for years when our children were young. We also visited again ĺast spring
