This week in my kitchen:

:: lots of vegetables from the garden
:: experimenting with zucchini stir fry. This was great (onion, leek, zucchini, ketjap manis (soy sauce) and sambal (hot pepper mash), when the vegetables were softened I added cooked rice and fried salmon)

Hi. It’s Beest. I found myself a box. So I’m going to sleep in it.

What’s that? It doesn’t fit? Of course it does. See?

Wait…

Maybe this is better?

You see? I’m very comfortable.

Hmn. Let’s try it this way.

You know, I have a great space that I use all the time for sleeping.

Ah, much better.

😉

Day 7 – Durham :: Weardale :: Lake District :: Harrogate

We had breakfast with E. and said our goodbyes. We should have been heading to the south, but we decided to take a detour and drive through the Lake District. Good choice, such beautiful views!
But it was also very, very busy and there was no place to stop, since all parking spaces were full. So most of these pictures are taken from the car and I never got a good shot of the lakes.

We didn’t even try to find a camping site in the Lake District. Instead we drove South and then East, to get closer to the highway that we needed to take the next day and found ourselves a place to stay there. At the reception they pointed us to a pub within walking distance, where we had a lovely traditional meal (roast of the day and yorkshire pudding).

Day 8 – Harrogate :: Canterbury :: Ashford

We needed to get to the south, so we took the highway. The only picture I took is this one, at the Westgate in Canterbury.

Dag 9 – Ashford :: Dungeness :: Dover :: Folkestone :: Calais :: Rotterdam

We booked the Canal Tunnel for the afternoon, so we had a little time to kill in Kent. We started driving along the coast, ending our tour at the lighthouses in Dungeness. The first one is a modern lighthouse, the second is about a century old and not in use anymore.

Then we drove up to Dover where I hoped to catch a glimpse of the white cliffs. 

I tried and failed to get a picture of Dover Castle. This was my best shot, but my pocket camera has a habit of focussing on something different then I intend to. But the result is quite artistic I think 😉

After driving around for a few hours, we decided to head to the Tunnel. We were two hours early, but they found us an opening on the next train.

Which was great, because we ran in to heavy rains and traffic jams in Belgium. We took another way home, where it was dryer and less busy and arrived home on a decent time afterall.
And that concludes our week of touring. I’m tired (sitting and looking all day costs more energy then you’d think and I don’t sleep very well in a tent), but I also feel refreshed. The gipsy in me is wide awake and now that we know it’s possible to do this with our car, we’re already dreaming about our next adventure (the Alpes? Italy?)…

Day 5 – Durham

We started by walking down from E’s college, into town (we took a taxi to get up again, that’s a rather steep hill to climb after a day of strolling through town).

We past the cemetery again. Even in the harsh light of noon it had that spooky glow.

Another one of those black trees, in front of the cathedral.

The market place was filled with flowers.
 

I’m not sure what this building is, but it was at the market square…

We took a boot tour over the Wear.

Under bridges,

past the cathedral,

and the bridge again. Those houses at the right are remains of the first bridge that had houses built on top of the whole thing.

In the meantime we heard some nice stories about the ancient and more recent history of Durham. It was fun, although E. was only half amused by the not so friendly remarks about the students in town. Luckily at the end of the tour the man acknowledged that the town wouldn’t be as booming as it is now without them.

The rest of the afternoon and the beginning of the evening we spent chatting and drinking (virgin cocktails – yum!) and eating at a chicken restaurant where Theo and E. played Russion Roulette with chicken wings (you didn’t know which spices were on them and some were very, very hot).

Day 6 – Durham

It was time to use up our saved patience for (the insides of) churches and castles.
First we visited the cathedral.

An impressive and beautiful building, where we were welcomed by a friendly clergyman, had to buy an information flyer for 1 pound and were not allowed to take pictures inside. But it was worth visiting.

Then we wanted to see the castle, but had to wait at the gate till the tour started (since it houses hotel guests in summer and students in the rest of the year, nobody is allowed in there without a guide). Sadly pictures were also not allowed inside the castle, but luckily there was a lot to see outside too.

Behind those windows is the library. I immediately spotted the book they used to keep that bottom window open.

Yep, Harry Potter. The whole castle feels a bit Hogwarts like, but nothing of the movies is filmed here (there was some filming in the cathedral, in the courtyard and on one of the towers). I heard the director did propose filming in the castle but the castle refused. That’s probably because of the students living here. E. had considered this place too, but had some good reasons to choose her (modern, but also very nice) college (for instance the self-catering she could do there, which is handy if you have foodallergies).

One of the students was our guides. She was very proud of her college and that showed.

A college in Durham is not the school, by the way (I think it is in the US), it’s the house the students live in and their social community, that hosts formal diners (for which they have to wear black gowns) and parties, but where they also can turn to if they need assistence.

This tour reminded us of the fact that we hadn’t properly toured E.’s college yet, besides her room and the kitchen (that she shares with 5 other students), so we did that when we returned. She bought us a drink in her college bar and then the day was over already.

Luckily we still didn’t have to say goodbye. E. was going to join us for breakfast the next morning. Nothing fancy, just a cheap breakfast in a shop restaurant, but we had had breakfast there twice already and at 3,35 pounds it was a nice deal for a six item breakfast, we thought. It did last us through our days of walking through town…

Day 3 – Castle Howard :: Duncombe Park :: Rievaulx Abbey :: North York Moors :: Saltburn-by-the-Sea ::  Durham

Lots of pictures. Even after deleting half of them. This day was full of my favorite things: old inscriptions, beautiful landscapes, trees and a beach. And even a bit of yarn.

The day started where it ended yesterday, at the friendly camping site near Castle Howard. We packed up the tent and our stuff and headd back to the road we took the day before. I wasn’t in the mood to take pictures when we were there, but it was rather special.

Too bad that it was hard to capture with my camera. The one above is the best I’ve got. It was a long, straight road, with some gates in the middle. At one end there was an obelisk. We couldn’t decypher the inscription, which was a shame, because it was something like: “as long as these characters are visible, we will remember … (his name was not readable, so sad).

In a straight line from here, at the other end of that long road there was this monument. The inscription was clear, but it didn’t say for who it was.

Ater that we drove further. At Duncombe Park we ate a little brunch (and I took pictures of flowers).

And past cute little churches.

Rievaulx Abbey wasn’t too well conserved, but still very impressive. I can imagine lots of ghost stories set here.

 

And then we found ourselves at the beach in Saltburn-by-the-Sea.

There was a beautiful old pier.

You could take an antique train up to the rest of the town. Or walk up. But we didn’t  (because we both have a fear of hights and a knee that didn’t function too well).

The pier was yarnbombed with a soccer theme.

And then we went back to the moor once more.

In the evening we drove up and down through Durham, trying to find a place to stay. Which we didn’t. In the end we decided to spent the night in a hotel. We know that can happen when you don’t plan anything and book upfront, but after that we went looking for a camping much earlier…

Dag 4 – Durham :: Hadrian’s Wall :: Durham

After a night in the hotel (we did appreciate the real bed and a good pillow), we started searching for a camping again and – thanks to the 30 minutes free wifi in the hotel – found one rather easy. We set up and had a few more hours to kill until it was time to meet our daughter. So we drove up to Hadrian’s wall.
We’ve always wanted to see that. After visiting so many remains of the Roman Empire in the past (we’ve been to Rome and Pompeji and many other sites) one might expect us to know better, but we were looking to find an actual wall. But that was not possible, there just isn’t much left of it. Most of it is disappeared or under the ground which is not so strange after two millenia.
We finally stopped at Chester’s Fort, where we found not only the remains of that fort, but also a (very) small part of the wall.

See, at the other side of the river. That’s part of Hadrian’s wall.

We drove back to Durham, where we had a lot of catching up to do with our girl. She took us to the botanic garden, where we enjoyed the flowers, but forgot to take pictures, since we were still busy catching up (I hadn’t seen her in two months and Skype is awsome, but nothing compared to real life meetings).
Untill we ran into these mysterious numbers.

We tried to figure it out, but we didn’t understand what it meant.
(Of course I couldn’t refrain from googling it once we were home. This link says they are musical sequences, referencing the bells of Durham’s cathedral and the flowers of the foxglove that is growing beside it).

Then we walked down tot the town center (she’s in a college up the hill) and passed a church with an intriguing cemetery. My simple camera couldn’t quite catch the filtered light, but this picture is close to what we saw.

We ate at one of E.’s favorite restaurants, did some more cathing up and went back to our tent, happy to know we had two full days of daughter time ahead of us.

I was going to try mobile blogging and keep you posted during our little tour through the UK, but telephone services were spotty and there wasn’t as much free wifi available as I thought (isn’t it funny how quick you get used to luxeries like that?). So I just enjoyed a week of being unplugged and will be telling you about our travels now that we’re back.

The plan was to visit our daughter who is doing her Master in Translation Studies in Durham. I’d been there for a very short while when I dropped here off last September and my husband hadn’t seen any of it yet. We also needed a bit of vacation and husband had been looking for a way to make longer rides with his beloved car for a while now. So we decided to take a few days extra and do a little touring around the UK.

Day 1 – Rotterdam :: Calais :: Folkestone :: Cambridge

This was when I thought I’d be blogging from my phone, so I took a picture when we had just left home.

And when we entered Belgium.

And France.

On the train. We’d never been to England using the Channel Tunnel. So that’s what we did. We liked it. Only 35 minutes to get to the other side of the Channel.

Kent. Lovely typical British landscape.

And a typical British pub.

Hay.

I think this was in Canterbury, but I’m not sure. We didn’t get out of the car, because we saved our limited patience with castles and churches for Durham.

Obviously. 😉

After a little incident at the Hartford Crossing toll booths (we didn’t have cash and thay didn’t take cards – oops!), we drove up North and found ourselves a camping site at Cambridge.

Our diner was typical British too (but without the vinegar, please).

Our tiny tent. Just big enough for two air matresses. That’s all that would fit into our car. But what more do you need anyway? At least in the beautiful weather we had… that was the one thing that wasn’t typical British this week.

 Day 2 –  Cambridge – Nottingham –  Rufford Abbey –  Castle Howard

Boiling water for coffee. We didn’t have room to take food and pots etc, with us, but we do need hot water to make coffee in the morning. If you were looking at this picture with my husband around, he would tell you how I tried out the new-to-us powdered coffee that morning, decided it was watery, added a few scoops and ended up with a very strong brew. Too strong, even for my cafeine-loving husband. The other half of the jar lasted us the rest of the week… I guess my tastebuds don’t work very well in the morning.

On the road again.

Cute little church.

Some llamas. Silly creatures. But that’s probably what they’re thinking about us too.

Beautiful tree.

Just driving and looking at the beautiful surroundings. Love that.

Aquaduct or viaduct. Our map wasn’t sure either.

Another church.

Rufford Abbey. We took a little walk around the gardens there.

Such a spooky tree, especially when it’s standing solo like this one. When your underneath the leaves look green, by the way.

The Abbey.

And then there was this. Not funny. Luckily we found another camping site where reception was closed, but we were welcomed by a friendly note, saying: “Late arrivals, please find yourself a pitch and we’ll see you in the morning.”
So that’s what we did.