flickums

I needed a holiday to recover from the last holiday! Last time we went away we were kind of busy seeing stuff, and I was fighting a cold. And we've been pretty busy since then so I wanted a chill-out weekend, where I could lounge about, ideally in a hot tub, cook food on a barbecue, and spend time reading, and playing games games with Flickums.

Found a nice "Scandi-pod" place near Scarborough. A small wooden hut, claiming to be off-grid but still has running water and electricity. Place was called Hyyge-out. All seemed quite cosy. Figured we'd head up there, check-in and cook a barbecue. 

First day didn't quite go to plan. The start of the drive was stressful because we were running late and the traffic was terrible. When we did get there weather was horrible and not really conducive to a barbecue. After pondering we decided to head to Scarborough to sample the delights of local cuisine. Disappointingly, the Fish and Chip shop closed just as we got there. And nowhere that was open really appealed. We ended up getting a Pizza Hut takeaway. And the cheated us out of our cookie dough!

Still, by the late evening, the weather was nice enough for hot tubbing. 

Saturday was a lot nicer. Got up nice and early and tried out my rocket stove. But it was hella windy and getting it to light and stay alight was not easy. Eventually got a nice fire going though and cooked tasty bacon! Also git a blister on my thumb from the lighter.

Fire used up most of our kindling so went on an expedition to get more. Found a nice farm shop for lunch and while they did a very nice Eggs Benedict, they didn't have any campjng stuff. Thought I'd try a shop near another campsite, because they also had a Dickensian market which seemed kind of twee but I wanted to see it. And it was really disappointing! Only one of the shops was actually open. At midday, on Saturday in the middle of summer! And there was no camping stuff. Tried a local shop that did have some holiday stuff but no kindling. And Morrisons was a bit of a bust. But eventually we got the kindling - at the petrol station just opposite where we had lunch. 

Decided that was it for the afternoon adventuring. We had most of the afternoon to do nothing. I read, set the hot tub heating - these are wood fired so need a certain amount of starting but I had firelighters, kindling, and a barbecue lighter! Wind had died down by this point so we opened the door and window to let the breeze in. And it turns out, let the flies in. Flypaper caught a million of them. I swatted a few. It was not a good place to be a fly. I read a chunk of my book, and after the hot tub had warmed up loitered there and listened to an audiobook. 

Barbecue was a "big green egg" barbecue. These are complex charcoal cookers designed to allow grilling, roasting, smoking, frying, baking, and I think there's probably a setting for for ice cream. We used it to grill because we had sausages and lamb skewers!

Final day, we raided a car boot sale. Flickums picked up many a jigsaw puzzle. The stuff some people think they can sell though; someone was selling old CRT TVs. Someone else had computer parts; Pentium 4 era, and a Radeon card from when it was still branded ATI.

British summers mean short nights and I tend to wake up when its light so didn't really get as much sleep as I'd have liked, so was actually pretty tired by the time we got home but not doing anything really for two nights and a day was a great way to recharge!