We left Weston Super Mare in brilliant sunshine and went down a narrow, narrow lane to East Quantoxhead. It’s a lovely hamlet with a duck pond, thatched cottages, one of which has a 3ft cacti in the garden that has long flat leaves that end with a 3 inch spike.

It was a lovely walk to the beach through a few wooded areas and through the fields and I could smell Autumn. There is a wonderful fresh scent in the air, especially near woods and I remember collecting fallen leaves to stuff the bonfire with and searching the local woods for any branches that could be dragged home to be put into the heart of the bonfire. Anyway I digress, the beach was tempting but we had other places to visit today. The beach is all rock pools and on the walk back we passed two family groups armed with spades and long handled nets.

Our next stop was Dunster a mediaeval village with a Yarn Market Cross, which after a bit of research I found out was built in 1609 for the sale of ‘broadcloth’ (woollen cloth) and ‘homespun’. It’s an octagonal structure with half open sides and fully tiled roof. There is a stone and mortar central column in which the roof beams are set and the top layer of beams slope upwards supporting the joists. The lower layer of beams go straight out from the central column and rest on the uprights. During the civil war a canon ball hit one of the roof beams and has left a perfect 4 inch diameter hole which can still be seen.

The main street is very wide as befits a mediaeval village and the 13th century nunnery is in lovely condition and is now a private dwelling. It’s built from a red sandstone which seems to have been used for a lot of old buildings in this area. From there we noticed a short cut to the Dovecot through the village garden. The villagers raised the money to buy the land and now rely on voluntary gardeners to keep it nice.

The Dovecot is one of the best preserved I have seen and all the nesting holes have been painted white reminding me of a 3D chessboard. I enjoyed walking through the back streets of the village, it was quiet and peaceful, I feel this would be a lovely area to live in, no motorways or noisy aircraft.

Dunkery Beacon beckoned so we checked Matilda (Sat Nav) and sure enough under points of interest she had an entry for Dunkery Beacon viewpoint. Great, I could look at the scenery while she did all the hard work. Bad, she didn’t take us to Dunkery, she left us high and dry on a narrow road at 1 in 4 gradient upwards and we had no choice but to continue. We landed on a green, grassy plateaux and had a cup of tea while we planned our next move. We oriented ourselves, took several pictures of the wild Exmoor ponies and well, here we are. The moon is full and shining down on us and it’s still, very still, too still. We had a chat with number one son over the phone and he has just advised us to ’stay on the road and not go onto the moor and we should be OK’ and now I’m wondering was it Exmoor? No surely it was Dartmoor where that hound lived?

We spent Thursday with my big brother and had a relaxing day and a good old fashioned natter. The weather was finally deteriorating so we booked onto a campsite just South of Bristol. With our own peculiar love of Cities we drove straight through Bristol without so much as a glance.

We’d travelled over the Severn Bridge and it’s some bridge, 443 ft towers with a single span of 3240 ft, the third longest span in the country, beaten by the bridges over the Humber and the Firth of Forth. Spring tides are 41 ft and second in the world to the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia, Canada.

On the Welsh side I noticed that we’d crossed a river and was not impressed but soon realised that the bridge , as I thought it was, was only getting us onto the main span. I don’t know if it’s possible to get vertigo in a vehicle but my legs certainly went wobbly.

Friday and it was still raining but at 3.17 am. I became a Great Aunt again to a healthy 9lb 7oz baby girl, both Mum and baby are fine.

It was our first and last visit to Weston Super Mare. We couldn’t find anywhere to park, Belinda(Tom Tom the sat nav) couldn’t find a way into Halfords, she found Halfords and we could see it but I think they had hidden the entrance, either that or it was some kind of test which we failed! Towns and us two are not compatible.

I did manage to direct Pat along a Toll road (toll not operating at this time of the year) and we followed it around Worlebury hill. It finally ends up at Sand Point (just north of Weston Super Mare), a headland that was fortified in the Iron age. We didn’t manage to climb up to the Fort because the wind was too strong and cold. We went for a walk along the base of the cliff and I’ve never really been anywhere like it. It was a large expanse of mud with parallel channels cut into it, I think by retreating tides. The grassy area appears to regularly covered by the sea at high tide.

On the way back we stopped at the old pier. What a shame it’s being left to go derelict. It is one of two piers that were built at Weston Super Mare between 1867 and 1904 adding a touch of Victorian and Edwardian architecture. An outcrop of rock was used for the foundations of the pier building and the walkway is on stilts around it and also links the whole thing to the mainland.

We’ve been lucky today because we’ve been indoors every time it’s rained, and rained it has, at times it was impossible to see where you were going and in town we saw a woman with her shoulder fixed firmly into the inside of her umbrella desperately trying to push it through the wind.

It’s now 8 pm and the wind is howling and trying to turn the van over, it’s throwing the rain at us in bucketfuls but we’re warm and snug inside and looking forward to Exmoor tomorrow - we're hoping the wind drops a bit by then.

We spent 3 days at home and on Saturday we just had to visit the Peak District. Wherever we’ve been we always return to the Peak District it has a magic all of it’s own and we know it so well but can still find unknown paths or roads and corners.

Sunday morning was spent at The Threshing Barn, a kaleidoscope of colour, a tavern of textures, a world of wool, Aladdin’s cave - it’s brilliant, knitted, felted, crocheted, braided, you name and Janet sells it as well as all the ingredients for self make and workshops to show you how. If you’re looking for that unusual Christmas present - look no further, visit Janet The Threshing Barn near Onecote, Leek and have a wonderful shopping experience. http://www.threshingbarn.com/home/main.htm

Tuesday arrived and we’d restocked the van so set off South. Pat decided that sunglasses were the order of the day, yes it was shining again. No sooner had he changed his glasses for the film star look when the sun went behind a cloud that was 7 hours long!

At Much Wenlock we had lunch but didn’t ‘do’ the abbey because the heavens were having a good cleanout and emptying it’s water contents on us.

After much discussion and 2 cups of coffee we headed for ‘The Bog’ on the Western edge of The Long Mynd. We went there a few years ago in our first motor home, a tiny Daihatsu van called Ady, but neither of us can remember what The Bog is so this time we’ll make a note.

Well, we did have good intentions but whilst crossing the Mynd we cam across a lovely afternoon tea stop with good views (once the rain and low cloud had cleared) over the Welsh Marches. So we stopped and had afternoon tea, dinner, supper and breakfast.

That evening, we sat and watched the moon playing hide and seek with the clouds left over from the rain earlier in the day. The moon was only 3 days away from full so was casting a lot of light and lighting the clouds to give a magnificent wild stormy look to the sky.

We woke at dawn, mainly due to a herd of cows that I’m convinced thought they were Cockerels! They had been practising there ‘singing’ at intervals during the night. We took our early morning stroll along side of the field only to realise that we were being eyed in a ‘keep out of my field’ look by a great big white bull. We seem to having these meetings on a regular basis, let’s hope that this is the Southern trip meet over and done with.

It was a lovely sunrise and we decided to go to Ross on Wye, well we can please ourselves and change our minds at will now. Ross on Wye is a lovely town full of old timber framed buildings and one shop, antiques I think, still had the old bowed window frame with a single piece of bowed glass about 4ft by 6ft. I wouldn’t like to have to replace that.

I had to have a stroll along the river before we left and I was surprised to find out that it was a 6 ft slide down to the waters edge and a rope and piton job to get back! You’d certainly need a long handled landing net here if you fished here!

As the Forest of Dean is only just down the road and neither of us have been there we tried, in vain to get Sally Anne (TomTom) to get us into the heart of the forest. Sadly no-one had told her of the one way system in Ross and after two passes of the same shops we thought we’d better just take any road out of the town before we got booked for loitering.

What a lovely area, the first pull in we pulled into I was in love with the area. The ground was littered with sweet chestnuts that Tesco’s would have been proud of, and joy and joys I found some new fungi! Two of the species here I had never seen before and was happily lying in the leaf litter getting that shot of shots when I noticed a forestry commission Landover driving slowly past. I smiled at him and he gave me a ‘at least you’re happy but there’s no hope for you’ smile back. We found at least seven different varieties of toadstool. I shall have great fun trying to identify unknown ones later.

This pull in was called ‘Boys Grave’ and we didn’t know if there was any historic reason for this so moved on. I’d love to live here amongst the forest, just being on the edge of the woods made me feel so good that to live in the heart of it must be amazing.

We found a forestry commission ride and stopped to have a walk. We met a chap walking his Alsatian, a beautiful animal but very shy. I totally ignored her and it wasn’t long before she was investigating my hand and I was allowed to pat her very gently. This ride, he calls the Turtle Dove walk because he has seen more Turtle Doves here than anywhere else. We heard a few Robins and I was thrilled to hear the distinctive ’gronk’ call of the Raven. There were Sweet Chestnut trees all around, I have never seen so many and fruits were enormous but sadly they were very well protected and I would need a suit or armour to penetrate the briars and gorse and bracken to get at them.

We’re moving further South tomorrow but I’m already looking forward to visiting this area in spring and summer and autumn well anytime really.

I decided that I would like to have a walk around St Andrews, a well known golfing town, well even I’ve heard of it so it must be popular. We drove all around the streets looking for parking and it was full. I can’t imagine that there was a tournament on but every man and his dog seemed to be there, each in their own car. We drove on in disgust and headed for Crail.

This was much more to our liking a lovely, pretty village with a harbour and what I really liked was the lack of modern signs and road markings. It looked and felt calm and quiet and de-stressed us both after the St Andrews experience.

The older houses are those that have the staircase to the upper floor on the outside of the building. When these were first built the ground floor was used as storage, probably for nets and such like and the upper floor was the living quarters. Now many of the houses are painted in pretty pastel colours and the staircases are decorated with pot plants. It really is a pretty place.

Pittenweem was the next town and I navigated my driver right to the very end of the coast road. It ended in a car park thankfully so I wasn’t too unpopular. The sun was shining and the wind was blowing so we took the KAP (Kite Aerial Photography) equipment for a walk up the cliff path. The photographs of the kids playground were very disappointing.

The area we were in is known as East Neuk. In Gaelic this means corner and this is a very pretty corner of Scotland. We were fascinated with the harbours. Most of them had 2 or sometimes 3 different building stages. The earliest stages were built of natural stones, not laid on their sides but placed on end and it catches the eye and I keep wanting to sketch them. This seems to be the style of the Dutch dam builders who came over to help with the building of these harbours.

St Monans was the nearest parking to a castle on the cliff top and we set off with all the KAP kit and followed the Fife coastal path for about a mile. It’s lovely scenery and when we arrived at the Castle I found out that it has the same name as my childhood home town, Newark. So in my honour I was allowed to do a solo KAP flight with the camera at my chosen height and angle. I managed to get some nice pictures. A dovecot, that is still in remarkably good condition sat on the opposite side of the gash in the cliff and as I was born in a converted dovecot I just had to have some aerial pictures. Again I was lucky and the sun shone casting lovely shadows. Patrick sat and did a sketch of the castle.

We discussed our next move because Edinburgh loomed large on the horizon. After 30 seconds we decided to bypass Edinburgh and have a look at North Berwick, a town on the Southern shore on the Firth of Forth. The whole of North Berwick is overlooked by ‘The Law‘, a 613 ft high volcano plug. It’s been around for a few million years and during that time the surrounding softer sedimentary rocks have weathered away. There are several of these ’plugs’ in the area, the most famous being Bass rock. Thousands of seabirds camp on Bass rock and you can get some fine views from The Seabird Centre at North Berwick . The centre is ecologically friendly, all the materials were sourced locally, only natural materials have been used, wood for partitions and worktops, copper gutters, stone or ceramic pipes for example. Maximum use of daylight has been made and they have their own little wind generator. It really is earth friendly.

Wednesday we moved down to Dunbar with it’s 3 harbours, it’s castle, it’s gunnery emplacement and a tiny tin hut puthering smoke out from a tiny tin chimney. We just had to walk right round the harbour to check it out and yes it was a kipper smoking house.

The rocks around here are volcanic and when the molten rocks cool at the right rate they set into hexagonal columns like the Giants Causeway in Ireland. We found several areas where the hexagonal’s can be clearly seen. They are a bit weathered but still very visible. I thought about having a game of hopscotch on them but one slip and you were in the muck, quite literally, a 10 ft drop into the old harbour - yeuk.

The castle was amazing, well what was left of it’s crumbling red sandstone walls. The whole castle had been built on rock outcrops and ridges over the sea. Sadly it’s now fenced off and the small cove it surrounds is out of bounds and I agree it does not look stable at all and as each high tide undermines a little more it could come crashing down any day.

We had a relaxing half hour in the gunnery just looking out to sea. There were Herring gulls, Great Black Backed gulls, Cormorant, my favourite the Curlew, I love it’s burbling call, a couple of Redshank, Eider duck and oh one Heron. I found a Seal just off shore and he was pointing his nostrils straight up into the air resting I think, completely ignoring the ‘Maggie’ dropping lobster pots all around him.

The last morning dawned bright and beautiful again, we’ve had some lovely weather. Pat managed to fly all his kites at Scremerston Beach and I was allowed to choose 2 pebbles to bring home. I negotiated and Patrick agreed that as the water container was empty I could take the equivalent weight in pebbles to 2 gallons of water, after haggling we agreed on one of each colour plus one for the road.

The last stop was at Bamburgh Castle, we thought we would be able to fly the Kite, but as were turning into the castle car park there was such a loud noise and I thought a lorry was going to hit us! We looked up and saw a jet fighter fly from behind the castle. We decided to give flying the kite a miss, we could so easily have ended up at Leuchers airbase dangling on the end of the line. I’m still wondering if the pilot was bombing the castle?

We had an uneventful journey home where we are spending a few days taking on stores and planning the next leg of the expedition.

Friday was a glorious day and I sat outside the summer house spinning wool on my Ashford Joy wheel and weaving a scarf on my Ashford Rigid Heddle loom, 2 pieces of kit I wouldn’t be without. Simon was painting and Patrick was woodcarving, a proper little hive of industry. It was a beautiful day, restful and good for recharging your batteries without a drop of hurry or rushing on the horizon, the day just happened - oh how I love retirement (sorry Simon).

Saturday was sunny again, we have certainly been lucky with the weather. In the morning I felt sorry for Midge, Simon’s Burmese cat, we’d ignored him most of yesterday so I got his lead to take him for a stroll around the garden. The grass still had the early morning dew and I found out that Midge does not like wet paws and as I bent down to have my photograph took with him, he dried his paws on my shoulder. He seemed to prefer this vantage point and refused point blank to return to the wet grass.
We had a plan of action today, a visit to so some textile studios that are part of North East Open Studios 2006. This is an event run each year and includes new artists that exhibit in their homes or the local village hall. It runs for 9 days in September and includes all the arts and crafts. This year there were 141 studios opening at various times throughout the week.

Our final destination was chosen for me, a textile studio with spinning, weaving, felting and more and I was looking forward to getting new ideas. The route we took was a beautiful road along what is called The Lord’s Throat. A valley with one of those giggling rivers running through it, you know the sort they gurgle and burble along, quite shallow but tumbling over rocks and around big flat stones that make a perfect meditation platforms. This is another spot we really must return to and I have noted it on my map.

Half way along The Lord’s Throat we stopped at the Donview Gallery, full of paintings, textile goods, jewellery and sculptures. We swapped stories and ideas with the lassie in charge, she was a fantastic woodcarver, carving abstract shapes out of planks and almost French polishing them.. She used mirrors and pebbles embedded into the wood and they were really glorious.

The smallest room in the building had to be seen to be believed, it was full of toilet rolls on which someone had painted various scenes and the room was festooned with them. It was certainly the most impressive toilet I had seen.

The Grampian Guild of Weavers studio was also exciting and enlightening and I learnt a lot from one of the organisers and I also got some new ideas on felting and fastenings, they also had some lovely felted flowers and marbles that were then strung onto handbags.

As we were so close we nipped next door to Archaeolink Prehistory Park (www.archaeolink.co.uk) where Simon and Patrick were able to fly kites and cameras and get some good aerial photos of the buildings and the Wicker Man. Lyn and I visited all the round houses and played at making flour with a quern, two round flat stones and the top one had a handle for turning. The corn was put into a central hole and then you turned the top stone round over the bottom one. It was certainly hard work and we didn’t manage to get even a teaspoonful of flour never mind a loaf!

All the modern implements of a Saxon home were on view, the weaving loom made from branches and pebbles with holes to hold the warp tight, a drop spindle for spinning the wool, still one of the most satisfying ways to spin for me and baskets made from nettle string. I’m definitely going to have a go at that. I’ve made a little dish from bamboo leaves twisted and then sewn together with wool and I think the nettle string basket will be the same kind of method.

On site there is a reconstructed mini henge, stone circle, an archaeological dig where you can actually have a go and of course the ever present café and gift shop.

A 10 metre high wicker man has been built on site and this will be burnt at the end of October to celebrate the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when the veil between the living world and that of the dead is very thin and spirits can cross.

We spent the evening indoors (it was finally raining) and me and the cat had a lovely time, I never realised Burmese can jump so high to get at their quarry! After an hour of so chasing the mouse he came and draped himself on my lap, belly up. I’ve never known a cat lie on it’s back. Midge was in heaven, comfort, chin being gently scratched and gently supported by this thoughtful human - I know I’m a mug but he is really a lovely animal.

We ended the evening with another Drum Circle session, this time Patrick played ‘our drum’ the one Simon and Lyn gave us for the van, ideal for making sure you get your own personal campsite!

We had to say goodbye to Simon and Lyn and the cat (they made sure he was locked out of my reach) next day and as always it’s a bit sad, but we’d had a brilliant weekend and we can’t thank them enough.

On our way South we diverted to Scotland’s Secret Bunker and decided to splash out and take a tour. I liked this one ‘cos you paid your money and then investigated it at your leisure. It was a constant 68 degrees underground and felt a little cool. The tunnel down to the entrance was 150ft long and carpeted, whether it would have been when it was built I’m not sure. There were 2 levels down to 450 ft and the concrete roof was 10 ft thick with a covering of soil and grass. Even with all this if it had taken a direct hit, it would not have survived.

The whole place could be hermetically sealed and the occupants would survive for 1 month, enough time for any nuclear fallout to be less hazardous. During the 30 days the air would have been filtered thereby removing any nuclear dust, quite a feat of engineering at that time.

It’s a fascinating place to wander around but it could be frightening as well. We watched 2 short films on what to do if you hear the siren and what would happen after a nuclear explosion and they didn‘t make pleasant viewing.

Back on the surface, the rain had stopped and the sun shone and we continued our journey towards Crail.