August 2016 – Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire
The first week of August 2016 finds us in the most picturesque Yorkshire Dales village called Pateley Bridge. Securing our first medium term house sit with Trustedhousesitters before we left home lead us to this magical place. It couldn’t have been a better introduction to living in England. A 17th century old vicarage stone house with a delightful and very energetic Yorkshire terrier (what else?) to care for, along with George the rooster and his 4 ladies who supplied us with fresh eggs every day, was a warm welcome to house sitting in Yorkshire.
The Yorkshire Dales is well renowned for its stunning scenery and hiking trails so Pateley Bridge is a very popular summer holiday destination. The somewhat sleepy winter village suddenly transforms into a buzzing hive of industry with the local cafes, hotels and B&Bs filled to overflowing. Mobile ice-cream carts can be found almost anywhere there is a crowd of people gathered.
On Sunday afternoons during summer the Pateley Bridge bandstand also comes alive with free entertainment from surrounding village bands. While people play bowls, basketball, walk along the banks of the river Nidd or visit The Oldest Sweet Shop in England you can hear the echo of music resound through the village. It sure didn’t take long to feel right at home here though we often had trouble trying to understand the local Yorkshire accent. And eeh by gum, they also had trouble understanding ours…
As we didn’t own a car we did a lot of walking, which is of course the best way to explore any new place. We didn’t keep a log of how many miles (not km’s as in NZ) we walked but oh how we wish we did. Peter and the Yorkie clocked up many miles up hill and down dale, with one of their favourite walks being up to Yorke’s Folly and along the bluffs for spectacular views back to Pateley Bridge and Gouthwaite Reservoir.
August 2017 – Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire
Fast forward to the exact same time the following year and here we are again back in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. The primary reason for our return was so that Liz could rejoin the team working at The Pancake House. With such a swell in numbers of people visiting and holidaying in the area, cafes in particular need extra staff. This of course suited us (Liz) perfectly as she thrives on people contact, has excellent service industry skills and had an absolute blast the previous summer season. That’s a whole story of its own……..for another day.
We had several moves in a short time while back in North Yorkshire. From staying with friends near Ripon to holiday accommodation in the village of Middleham then on to house sitting with two enthusiastic labradors in Risplith and back to staying with our friends in Ripon again.
Middleham is the heart of North Yorkshire’s horse breeding/training country which we found very fascinating. With Johnston Racing stables (“Britain’s winningest trainer”) next door to where we were staying we saw first hand the morning (6am start) routine of Jockeys and trainers riding horses up through the cobbled main street to the gallops for their daily run. Brilliant – Dick Francis books became more than just words on a page for us.
This year we had the advantage of a car (an el-cheapo £550 Ford Focus) to get around after our first year of traveling solely by public transport, which meant we could explore North Yorkshire in a lot more detail and go deeper in to faraway places. We saw enough of the Dales to know that however many times we go back there’ll always be more to explore!
August 2018 – Toft, Cambridgeshire
This was our second visit to Toft, a village of only a few hundred people just west of Cambridge. Our first visit was a very brief three day house sit so we were thrilled to be invited back to look after our favourite chocolate Labrador for a second time, especially for three weeks during the summer. With an absolutely fantastic English summer (in fact too hot for walking the dog believe it or not) and a vegetable garden producing copious quantities of delicious vegetables for us to help ourselves to (and keep well watered) we lapped up an English summer as good as any in NZ.
Cambridgeshire has very significant connections to us personally. Firstly, Peter’s grandfather, Frank Collin was born in Chesterton, Cambridge and at the age of 17 he moved to New Zealand to live. It was also from the farm lands of Cambridgeshire that Peter’s ancestors on his grandmother’s side (the Adams family…) originated from before coming to live in New Zealand. With some info from cousins and helped by google we spent several days searching out villages like Hatley St George and Graveley, places we knew Peter’s ancestors had called home, and also hunting out family grave sites in their churchyards. We both felt quite emotional knowing that we were walking the ground our ancestors once trod.
One very interesting thing that we noticed while traveling in and around Cambridgeshire was that the lie of the land felt to us very much like Canterbury, with the fields golden with wheat. It is no wonder that T W Adams (a Canterbury pioneer) and Papa Collin felt so at home on the Canterbury plains in New Zealand.
Oh so much more to write about – so check in here again soon and also keep an eye on our Photo Gallery, Facebook and Instagram pages @ Ezypzy Life
