This week, I’ve come to Ivy Bank Stay-Cation, a farm campsite in the village of Kirkby Malzeard. It’s a great site where I holed up for most of last winter. They won the Vanlife Awards Campsite of the Year a couple of months ago, which was great and has seen a big boost in business for them.

Sometimes, when I stay at the cottage for an extended period, I can go for days and days without speaking to another person. At first, it’s nice. I enjoy spending time alone, and tranquillity is often needed after some of my travel adventures. But after a while, I feel the need to speak to other humans again and access nice hot showers and running water. This is the great thing about living in a campervan. When I get bored or feel the need for adventure, I simply drive off and find somewhere else to settle for a bit.

Ivy Bank has its own little café, and it’s a farm campsite, so there are chickens and sheep and lots of birdlife. It’s tranquil during the week but can get busy at the weekends, especially since they won the award. Having the option to return to the cottage on weekends is great because it means I get the best of both worlds.
My dad also has a season pitch here for his campervan ‘The Whale’, so we often get more time to hang out while I’m here.
I’m friends with the lady who runs the café, so it’s nice to go for coffee and chat some days when I’m feeling the need to be social.

I’m also starting to feel the need for some sun on my face again. The weather in this part of the country has been rubbish recently, so I’m considering going down the country for a while.
However, the next couple of months are full of plans with family and friends, so I won’t be able to head down south until the end of July.

A rare moment of sunshine. That bus over there is where I’ll be hot-tubbing after the long walk with my sister.

Speaking of family adventures, my sister visited the cottage this weekend. We needed to plan for a three-day walk we’re doing in a couple of weeks. So we decided to have a fire night at the cottage to make the plan and catch up, as we’ve not had time to hang out for a while.
We try to fit in a ‘sister night’ once a month or so, but we’re both quite busy with life, so sometimes we go a bit longer than that between meet-ups. But it’s always really nice to just chill and catch up when we eventually get together.

This was the first fire night of the year at the cottage, so we had to gather stones first to make the fire circle.
My dad removed the old fire circle while I was away, healing from my accident. He said it made the lawn easier to mow.
I wanted it in a different place anyway, so it now sits directly in front of the cottage door. Easier to ferry snacks and drinks in and out of the cottage.
Dad was only mildly grumpy that I burned a small patch of grass and that he’ll now have to strim around it when he mows the lawn. He also commented about buying a movable fire pit, so I won’t be surprised if one appears in the garden at some point.
But until then, we have the nice new stone circle.

My sister has bought a new tent for the walking trip we’ll be doing, and so she decided to put it up in the garden and try it out. It’s a pretty nice tent, and despite the heavy downpour in the middle of the night, she stayed sound and dry inside. I’ve ordered the same tent for myself.

My sister making her bed in the new tent, and the nice new fire pit which we built in under ten minutes.

This will be our first multi-day walk, so we’re excited but also a bit worried that we’ll be exhausted from carrying our camping gear. We’re planning to walk from Redcar to Scarborough, stopping at three different campsites along the way.

My sister has done most of the planning. She loves that stuff, and I’m not a planner at all, so it works out well. I need to buy a few extra bits like a small stove and a new sleeping bag.
I bought a sleeping bag from Mountain Warehouse last weekend, but it turned out to be a child-sized one. It didn’t say it was a child’s sleeping bag anywhere on the packaging, and I didn’t notice that it was only 160 cm long until I opened it when I got home and tried to fit inside it.
I’ve already removed the label, so I probably can’t take it back to the shop now, but since it was only £20, I’m not too bothered. I’ll probably give it to my friend’s little girl as they sometimes go on family camping trips. But it does mean that I now have to go and shop for a new sleeping bag again.

The long walk will happen in a couple of weeks, followed by a much-needed hot tub when we return to Ivy Bank campsite, so I’ll be sure to post about how it went.

In other news, I’m happy and sad to report that the baby birds have flown the nest! After shopping, I arrived home on Friday to find only one bird in the nest. When it saw me peering in, it did a little hop and flew across the garden.
It was impossible to grab a picture of them as they flitted around the woodland area in the garden to the left of the cottage. They’re just so fast!
The nest is now empty, and it doesn’t look like the mum is interested in returning to lay a second clutch. So, I will take the opportunity to chop the bush right down before it falls away from the wall again.
I’ll miss my little bird babies, but I think they’ve decided to stay in the forest garden, so at least I can still hear them cheeping, and sometimes I see them looking for worms in the lawn. I’m happy that they all survived and grew up to be healthy adult blackbirds.

The only picture I managed to get of a baby bird after they flew the nest.

Now that I’m at Ivy Bank for the week, I have a new set of birds to watch. There’s a little blackbird here who likes to look under my van for worms, and the chickens make an appearance occasionally to look for wayward crumbs. I like to keep a pot of dried mealworms by the door to entice the birds out for snacks.
Drinking tea with the van door open and watching the wildlife is honestly one of my favourite things about vanlife. I love that as soon as I open the door, I’m basically outside. I feel so much closer to nature and the outdoors this way.

Unfortunately, one chicken was killed by a loose dog last weekend. The campers in question had simply opened their van door at night to let the dogs run free, and one of the dogs decided it fancied a poor chicken. They denied all knowledge the next morning when the chicken was found dead under their vehicle, but the campsite has cameras, so it was easy to see what had happened.
For those of you who own dogs and stay on campsites, please always keep them on a lead. There’s usually a good reason why the campsites ask you to do this.

Until next time.

Fox
xx