A Quick Pre-Christmas Round Up

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‘Oh the weather outside is frightful, but our fire is so delightful’. Don’t worry, I’m not asking for it to snow, but the cold and rain are the reason I’m sat by the fire with time to write a quick pre-Christmas round up.

I can’t believe we haven’t written anything since the end of our month-long tour of France back in early September. At that point, Jay was in pain with this hip/leg/sciatica and I was papping myself as I drove Zagan home. After a couple of physio appointments and exercises, Jay’s pains eased and he’s now back up and running – literally!

He had to miss out on quite a bit of running while he recovered, including the local Robin Hood half marathon. But by the end of October he was fit enough to take part in the Worksop half marathon. He has also managed to secure himself a place in the London marathon next year, because he got such a good time in this year’s event. It’s officially called a ‘Good For Age’ place, but personally I think he did it in a pretty remarkable time for any age.

On the 10th of October, like lots of folk across the UK, we were treated to a display of the Northern Lights. After seeing a fantastic display from the van in Trier, Germany earlier in the year, I’d hoped we would one day see them when at home. While our street is a bit too well lit to get a good view, we were able to walk to some nearby fields to watch the glow until we could no longer feel our fingers due to the cold.

To discover more about the night sky, a couple of weeks later we visited the Sherwood Observatory on one of their open nights. Alongside a talk, and chatting to members of the local astronomy club, we got to look through their huge telescope and see Saturn, its rings and some of its moons. We were also lucky enough to see the comet that was around at the time, and a flyby from a Starlink string of satellites. We enjoyed it so much that we’re going back in early 2025 to see a show in their recently completed planetarium.

Zagan has been in storage since we got back and we decided in November not to get him an MOT until we are ready to hit the road again. So our travels have been by car and plane. We spent a week with friends on a farm in Yorkshire where we had a view of Ilkley Moor from the lounge window. I’d never heard the song ‘Ilkley Moor Baht’at’ but it became the theme song of the week – especially when we went for a walk on th’moor. During the week we explored the local area including Haworth; home of the Bronte sisters, and Salts Mill which houses one of the largest collections of artworks by David Hockney.

After a week of exploring Yorkshire, we flew over to Spain to visit my brother who moved out to Mojacar earlier this year. He has the most amazing place with views of the mountains and we spent several days with him and his wife getting a glimpse into their new lives in the sun.

We also took the chance to pop and visit friends who live in a nearby town, did lots of walking in the area, joined the local ‘Los Bandidos‘ running club for a few sessions and spent a day exploring Alicante town.

I have to admit that I’m finding the long winter nights and gray days hard. I’d love to be back in our motorhome Zagan, enjoying some winter sun for a few months. The sunny winters we spent in Nerja were perfect. However, as our parents are in need a a bit more support these days, we’re sticking around and making the most of crisp sunny days by getting out and walking in the local area.

Our plans for next year are a bit thin on the ground. Jay’s London marathon training plan starts next week, so there will be lots of running for him over the next few months. Instead of giving each other Christmas presents, we’ve booked a week in an apartment in our happy place of Whitby in January. In February we’re heading back over to Mojacar to see my brother and his wife and look after their pooch ‘Biggie’, while they go on a trip.

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At the end of April we’ll be in London for the weekend so Jay can try and finish the marathon in under 3 hours – then we have nothing else booked. No doubt, we’ll get an MOT for Zagan and head off somewhere. We still have unfinished business in Ireland after only completing about a quarter of the Wild Atlantic Way when we visited a couple of years ago, but we’ll happily pootle around anywhere and just enjoy the simple life.

We don’t write about our day to day lives in detail, as I suspect you would all get very bored, very quickly. But while we’re back at home our AirBnB is booked out way more than we ever thought it would be, so that helps to keep us busy and bring in some extra money. We both now have voluntary roles on the committee for our running club The Kimberley and District Striders, and along with several weekly runs, gym sessions and supporting our parents – we do sometimes wonder how we had time for jobs.

I want to finish this post by saying a huge thank you to everyone who takes the time to read our ramblings, send us messages and buy our books. I know we don’t motorhome as much as we used to, and we certainly don’t blog that often, but we do love having this blog here, helping us to keep part of the motorhome community.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and an adventurous 2025 – who knows where it will take us all.

Julie