Blogs from North York Moors, North Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe

finally we have quit our jobs, be it a little bit earlier than expected but thats the Holland effect!!! No more wooden shoes and cheese for us! We had a night out in Rotterdam to celebrate us never ever coming back!!!!! went into Holland Casino and pretended to be james bond and miss money penny, one game of cards loosing €15 in 25 seconds and leaving........(even though agent money penny ilona was on first name terms with all the staff??????) (double agent?) we plan to go climbing this week and to the lake district at the weekend for the mountain film festival, to mentally prepare ourselves for our new zealand adventure fest!!! ... read more

So here we are boarding our last train. From the outside the train seems really exotic – each of the dozen carriages has a different destination; Moscow-Munich, Moscow-Basel, Moscow-Paris etc. Right at the very end is our carriage, Moscow-Amsterdam, our home for the next 2 nights. Inside, even though its a Russian train, it has a totally different feel to it. The compartments are tiny compared to the Trans-Siberian. They feel ½ sized, only wide enough for a single 3 person seat facing a blank wall. When the 3 bunk beds are folded down there's nowhere to sit. And no endless supply of tea and coffee as there's no samovar at the end of the carriage!! Its functional – like being on a ferry rather than a cruise ship. Even the Russian staff seem different, somehow ... read more

Way back in the cold, snowy days of Jan we spent two weeks test riding a range of motorcycles (Motoguzzis, KTMs, Hondas, BMWs) taking all of them on a circuit up and over the Pennines round Skipton & Malham on the little twisty back roads. There were a few exciting moments e.g. when it decided to snow really heavily on a particularly hilly, twisty single track road with nowhere to turn round and the only option was to keep climbing higher or when the KTM broke down in the middle of the busiest roundabout on the outskirts of Keighley. Still we survived and in March took possession of a shiny black BMW GS1200, with 3000 miles on the clock. Between March and June a steady stream of parcels kept arriving all containing essential bits and bobs ... read more

Yorkshire’s weather continued to behave wonderfully for me, the 24th no different. The day’s first job was a stroll to the Marketplace to see ‘The Horse’ - a bizarre medieval tradition maintained by some old friends. The Deighton family lived across the road from us when I was born in a village near Richmond. John has always led the musical charge, and this year he was only accompanied by 1 of his sons - Tim. The Horse is a pagan fertility ritual, and if you hadn’t seen it before you’d wonder what the hell was going on. They tour the town’s open spaces and shops, singing the song, smacking the horse down with sticks, and it then gets reborn. John has promised me a write-up he has on the meaning of the whole exercise but I ... read more

When Brendan Geary drove me south from Durham to Ampleforth we stopped to have a look at Fountain's Abbey. This Cistercian Abbey was founded in 1135 adjacent to the Skell River. It became a flourishing community which included many lay Brothers who served as masons, tanners, shoemakers and smiths, or in brewing or baking. By the middle of the 13th Century, it was one of the wealthiest religious houses in England. Economic collapse came in the 14th Century when bad harvests, Scots’ raids and the Black Death exacerbated the effects of financial mismanagement. The Monastery recovered and in due course the abbot even sat in parliament. Dissolution came in 1539 at the hands of King Henry VIII after his disagreement with the Pope over the annulment of his marriage. In 1540 the abbey buildings and over ... read more

This weekend was supposed to be Kirstyn’s weekend of crazy things she’s never done (now she’s 30 and getting old) but the Adrenaline Gods had other ideas. We did the usual trick and took off straight after work, first stop, the Tacky-a-rama of Blackpool. The main reason, the tallest and fastest roller coaster in Europe is there, and Kirst has never been on any roller coaster! (I was shocked too when I found this out). By the time we got there by 8pm, it was last ride and our plans had been destroyed. We had to settle for the run down boulevard of dodginess, and the Blackpool tower, all topped off with the worst ever fish and chips! Bloated and in pain, both physically and emotionally, we left on our way to the other side of ... read more