I’m sat here surveying the beautiful North Yorkshire countryside on decking outside my glamping pod (which has to be beholden to be believed). Drinking my frothy cappuccino and chuckling to myself as off in the distance a farmer rounding his sheep reminds me nothing of that programme ‘one man and his dog’. Instead the farmer is on some kind of vehicle that makes a loud beeping sound. He does have a sheep dog but I’m not sure if its doing what its supposed to. Instead of ‘come by’ and ‘away’ I am listening to ‘no wait, not that way, wait….Waitttttt!! Spat out with ever increasing frustration. Meanwhile the sheep from this distance look like a shoal of fish running back and forth from my right to my left and back to my right again; with the farmer sounding increasingly cross. It’s incredibly comical to watch from the comfort of my camping chair.

We arrived yesterday at our glamping site and unloaded our car full of unnecessary things into our glamping pod. Apparently last weeks posh tent was not enough and we decided to up it a notch. In reality this is instead of our May Mallorca holiday which was cancelled for fairly obvious reasons. The ‘pod’ is amazing so I’ve included some photos below.

Yesterday evening we enjoyed dinner in the main ‘tent’ which is set up as a restaurant and bar. It’s full luxury so we dressed up a little for dinner. The food was gorgeous and you cant beat the views as you dine.

Amazingly it only took a G&T, a beer, half a bottle of wine and a wee dram of whiskey for me to believe that jumping onto the bed was a great new game. My husband found it amusing to video this. I’ve seen it back – clearly I wasn’t very good at it. I must try this in trainers sometime and see if I can get more bounce.

This morning after our first night in our “tent” we opened the curtains and looked out at the utterly gorgeous views and the Alpacas which wander around the field in front of us. They were tame enough to allow me to get pretty close but did move off once I was within touching distance.

Following my porridge and coffee, the friendly alpacas and the amusing sheep herding incident we set off on our 100km bike ride to the sea at Bridlington and back. It’s supposed to be very flat around here so I was surprised by some of the undulations not least including the 20% starting gradient immediately outside where we are staying. Since the path on the “campsite” is large stones you cant ride your bike until this road so we had to hop on and start on this ascent which is definitely not easy. I managed and was feeling pretty smug with myself and crawling up this hill when my husband says wait…I think we might be going the wrong way 🤔. I carried on for a bit thinking he doesnt sound sure and if I stop I’m not going to be able to get back on here.

This was followed by ‘no wait’ its the other way! So I turned around and started going downhill – lovely………well it was until he stopped, looked at his Wahoo (Cycling device) puzzled and then waved his arms at me again and started coming back towards me – ah nope its uphill after all. What??!! Ok so for the second time I had to try to get on my bike on a steep hill. Thankfully it went well and I started crawling up the hill again.

After that our ride was very varied. The views were totally stunning all the way to Bridlington, which isn’t pretty (sorry Bridlington) and then stunning all the way back. The initial miles saw a lot of bumpy roads with gravel, which I’m not a huge fan of so it was a bit slow going for me. After that it was an easy and enjoyable ride all the way there – the landscape looks like Cezanne pictures with orange fields and haystacks. We stopped in Bridlington briefly for a photo by the sea and something to eat but both wanted to escape as soon as possible. Too many people and busy roads.

On the return leg I felt fine up until 45 miles which is not surprising as that is about the furthest I’ve cycled in the last few months. After that I started to run out of energy and salted water plus was noticing the heat quite a bit. The last ten miles from 52 miles to 62 were a real mental struggle for me and I felt ecstatic when we were nearly back at the campsite. Don’t get me wrong I love cycling and the views were spectacular but ‘bonking’ on a bike is never fun. (Bonking in cycling/running terms is running out of energy or in my case salt).

My husband suggested we go to the pub for a beer at the end of our ride, which sounded ace so we agreed to do that even though it meant descending the 20% hill past our campsite, followed by a 17% descent into Acklam and then onto the pub. It took my last bit of energy to do this so imagine my response when we found the pub was closed!!!! The air was definitely a shade of cerulean, Prussian, navy….you get the idea!

So we then climbed the 17% and the 20% again to get back to the campsite, which thankfully has a bar anyway so we enjoyed a well earnt beer (or two) in the sunshine.

Off for something to eat now, next blog later or tomorrow if I get blotto