In the quest for better weather, we take the unlikely step of heading north and our first hope is Sheffield.

Like an ever increasing number of cities in the England, Sheffield has introduced a Clean Air Zone (CAZ) since we were last here. But unlike some other places, yes Bristol City I’m talking about you, the council has thoughtfully allowed motorhomes to transit the CAZ under exemption. This means a modest £10 fee, which feels about right as our aging land yacht is not the cleanest vehicle on the road, as opposed the £100 fine we got in Bristol.

The exemption is relatively easy to fill out and so long as you remember to do it in advance, it allows us to take the easy way across the city to our favourite little stop, Wymingbrook Farm.

With impeccable timing, Mum and Laurie arrive in Sheffield on the same day to stay with Jacs and Chris and we’re all able to meet up for dinner during the week.

Despite enduring a few days of rain that varies from ‘Mizzle’ to ‘Coming down like stair rods’ with everything in between, we confidently make plans for a barbeque at the weekend on the campsite.

Thankfully, the sunshine takes it’s cue to emerge from the gloom of the week and for another happy surprise Nina, Simon and Marley drive all the way up from London on Saturday to join us.

Saturday and Sunday we have two lovely family days together with smash burgers, strawberries (although I don’t think the boys let anyone else get many of them) and ice cream with lots of sunshine. Just brilliant.

Whilst we were at the site, we met some lovely neighbours who were originally from Yorkshire but now live in France. They kindly left us a list of places to visit and stay at as we cross Yorkshire for Cumbria, which has recently changed its name to the catchy titles of Westmorland & Furness and Cumberland. We really love it when fellow motorhomers share favourite stopovers, especially when they’ve seen the size of Beatrix and know that we’ll fit in.

With the barbeque a roaring success (if I do say so myself!) we say goodbye to Sheffield the next day. We don’t know it yet, but we wont see the rain again for weeks.

Continuing north, we drop into another of our favourite sites at Exelby, in North Yorkshire. Just off the A1, the site here is quirky and strangely endearing with a lovely pub up the road. It’s also one of those great sites that charges separately for electricity and as the sun is shining, we can make plenty of our own power.

We’re here for the rest of week and do some walking of the local area and visit the splendid Exelby Green Dragon pub which is one of those places you eat at and are never disappointed. This time however, I was the one left with food envy when Sally’s dinner turned up!

We had a walk with a picnic across to Snape village to see the castle / manor house there. I think I’ve heard of Snape Castle before but have no idea why. It could be that I remember some school history as both Anne Neville and Katherine Parr, who would both go on to be Queens of England, have lived here in the 15th and 16th centuries. However, I suspect its more likely I’m reminded of Harry Potter.

The house itself is pretty cool looking but as it’s privately owned we can’t get in so we just peer in over the gates.

Finding some ice creams in the freezer finishes the week off perfectly.

Back to the weigh in…. did you have a guess?

Beatrix weighs in at 6620 kgs which was a bit of a surprise for me but Sally guessed right on the nose. As that was taken with about 150kgs of water on board, we can travel around legally but we’ll need to do something about changing our allowance I think.

That’ll be a tale for next time.

Thanks for reading. Sally, Toby and Merlin