My Summer Holiday

Apologies for no posties for a long time, but that is basically because I have been on my summer hols. Nowhere exciting and even more boring when I tell you what I spent my summer holidays doing!

I drove up the M1 for the third time this year in Lucy and arrived in lovely sunny (really it was rainy, I could barely see 20 yards in front of me...) Yorkshire. For 2 weeks we stayed in the cottages in a little village in Wensleydale: Home of Wensleydale cheese, funnily enough. 

For those 2 weeks, we spent our time being very productive. We fitted a new kitchen into one of the cottages, repainted all the window frames and sills, as well as chopping down half the foliage on the nearby railway embankment so to quote me dad: "We could see the steam trains properly."

Why, I hear you ask, did we spend our summer holiday doing DIY and gardening projects. Well that is a very good question. If you ask my mum and dad it is so that we can enjoy the cottages properly in the future, but if you ask me and my sister, considering the fact I am going to university next year and won't be about to enjoy the cottages, I say it was slave labour. I suppose we did get a MacDonalds and a curry out of it though!

Nevertheless, I did spend a lot of time at my 88 year old great uncle's farm, which is no longer actually working if you like, but there is still everything there. So our 2 projects were to start the 1972 Land Rover Series 3 and also to start the 1951 David Brown tractor. Now that was something special in itself. I has so much history on the farm. My uncle was saying that when the farm was operational and fully functioning, that tractor arrived new on the farm in 1951, an has been the workhorse on it ever since. It is one truly beautiful piece of machinery and not only that, but my uncle bought another tractor exactly the same which he used for parts, and another with a front loader on it so he could pick up the bales of hay.

So that was my summer "holiday." I put that in inverted commas, because that is what it was sold to me and my sister as by the rents. It was far from! 

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The Yorkshire Rose

As some of you may know, I am from Yorkshire. Well actually when I say I am from Yorkshire  I am really lying a little bit. I don't really know where I am from, however I do know that my family are from Yorkshire. Is that enough to be a Yorkshireman? I am going to say yes.

And the reason for this is I find myself picking up all the little phrases and sayings and philosophies. Things like "that'll do" is something which I have now become more and more in touch with, pretty much applying it to anything and everything.

Alongside this the usual "You don't get nothing for nothing" has become a big part of my way of thinking, which is not all together a bad thing. Basically it has stopped me spending so much money on stuff that I don't really need!

Not only these things though, but having spent a large amount of time driving up and down the M1 in my Yorkshire born-and-bred morris minor, I have had a lot of time to reflect that I actually prefer the northern end of that road to the southern. Not only are the Yorkshire dales really quite a nice place to be, but also I really enjoy the way of life. Things sort of happen when they need to happen, and wandering around the farm up there is a really inspiring and relaxing thing to do, whether it be making tile cutters out of washing machine motors, getting tractors from 1951 to start again, or cutting down trees so we can actually get these tractors out of the barn that once covered them from the rain, is something I really enjoy.

And for that reason, Yorkshire feels like where I come from. And so I am going to say it is where I come from.

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Those Lads Holidays.

Every year, there is an influx of young visitors to those Mediterranean resorts like Zante, Malia, Malaga and Ibiza, and this year, it was the turn of my peers to jet off to Greece, get drunk for 7 days, then fly home with the most horrendous hangover!

I have just met up with a friend who has been out there. He is not the type to get overly excited about things, so when I asked him how it was, his response was: "Well, it's a bit tiring going out every night isn't it?" which just about sums up my attitude to this type of holiday.

I have no issues with people who do, but I am not the type for clubbing. I am the kind of guy who likes to be in bed by 10.30, and likes going camping at the weekends, spends all of his spare time fixing my car and writing pointless stuff on the internet. To do that, you definitely have to be a special type of person!

So naturally, a whole week of this, would just be ridiculous. So, between me and my friends I have come up with a little plan that I hope will sort all these issues out. Instead of getting on a rubber band airlines plane to Cyprus, we will be getting in our little cars, and heading up the M1, following the signs for "The North." A crazy idea I know, but we have chosen to go and have a good old lads holiday in sunny yorkshire. And if you are an Ale drinker you will have heard of Theakston's, and if you are an Ale boffin you will also know that a Theakston's brother makes a beer called Black Sheep, both breweries are located within 10 miles, as well as Wensleydale Brewery and many other lovely beers, brewed in and around Wensleydale with the lovely soft water that the marshes provide.

We will be camping in a field, with nothing but a few matches (and a ton of lighter fluid but don't tell anyone, that would be cheating), a few tents and some sleeping bags, for just under a week. This is something that we will really enjoy, I can tell you that, and something that we would much rather be doing that going over the water to Ayia Napa or something like that!

I will make sure I keep you posted on how we get on!

What makes me laugh is even as I write this blog, Holst came on shuffle on my iTunes. I really am a sad old man before my time.

Thanks for reading,

Please follow me on twitter: @peachy146