Witch o't Woods

Tag: off-grid

A change of Scenery

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

June 9, 2025
Ugly Babies

This week, the cottage saw the arrival of some new tenants. The tenants in question will not be paying any rent. Nor will they be helping with the cleaning. By the look of them, all they’re currently capable of is eating and snoozing. Their eyes are still closed, and they don’t have any feathers yet. They are quite ugly, but we don’t tell their mum that.

These are blackbird babies, and they arrive at this time every year. I’m happy to see they’ve continued their tradition of nesting in the briar rose, which grows next to the outhouse door.

The mother sits, eyeballing me through the leaves as I enter and leave the outhouse. She always has a slightly grumpy look, as if my very presence is rude and uncalled for.

Disaster struck a few days ago when the heavy rains came and almost tipped the bush over. This happens quite often as the birds have usually built their nest before I’ve had time to give the bush its summer trim.
The bush was leaning so far away from the wall that the nest was fully exposed. The mother stared at me. Please do something.
So out came the trusty secateurs, and off came the top half of the bush, which is now leaning nicely against the wall again, ensuring that the ugly bird babies are snug and dry.

Is the mother thankful? Hard to tell. She still looks very angry with me. As if it’s my fault that she chose to build her nest on unstable ground.

A few years ago, her one very fat baby threw itself out of the nest. Using gardening gloves very carefully, I untangled it from the thorny bottom of the bush and gently placed it back into the nest. Only for it to jump out again a few hours later.
In the end, I had to just leave it in the flowerbed.
Luckily, the flower bed was relatively safe because I’d added a wire mesh fence to stop the rabbits from digging up the plants.
The fat baby bird had to live in the meshed-off flower bed for weeks until it was finally ready to fly.
The mother, looking jaded, sat on top of the rosemary bush, waiting for the day when the baby could jump out and begin its adult life and she could finally go back to living in a nest and not getting rained on.
Such is life.
Hopefully, the four babies will stay in the nest this year until they’re fully baked, and she’ll have an easier time.

In other news, an accident happened on Saturday when I went to drive through the big gates at the end of the dirt track which leads to the cottage.
A big gust of wind grabbed the gate and swung it closed as I drove through. The angle was just right, so the gate got stuck on the front wing of my van, disintegrating the gate and causing a big dint in the front panel. The driver-side door now doesn’t open fully as the bent panel is in the way, and no amount of banging or bending has resulted in this being any better.

Ouch, poor Noah!

I’ve sourced a new panel (£90) and will pick it up on Friday.
Unfortunately, they don’t come ready painted, so I’ll also have to buy the correct paint and spray it white before I can put it on the van.
I’ll also lose part of the decorative blue van stickers, which I’m not entirely sad about.
I’ve never been keen on the blue stripes, which were badly applied to my van by the previous owner, so this gives me a good excuse to remove them entirely and pick a different type of campervan decor.
Another job on the list.

Driving out of the cottage yesterday, I was surprised to see that the gate had already been replaced by a new, second-hand one. There’s also a nice big chain on it, which I can use to loop over the bush when it’s open, ensuring that the wind can’t blow it closed in future. That was fast work by my landlord!

The end of a good old gate

On Tuesday, I checked the level of my new leisure battery and saw that it hadn’t been charged for four days!
The problem was a loose connection on the negative wire coming from the solar panel.
Credit to the new battery, I hadn’t noticed for four days that my solar wasn’t working. If that had been my old battery, the fridge would have screamed at the end of the first day.

I took the van to my dad, who helped me diagnose the issue.
In the pouring rain, of course.
I had to stand with my purple umbrella propped on top of the open rear door while Dad rooted in the cupboard, trying to access the wires to test them with his meter. Why do these things never go wrong in good weather?

The problem turned out to be with the connector plug. I accidentally pulled on it when grabbing something from the cupboard, and the wire inside the plug is now loose. It works as long as you wiggle it in the right way, but sometimes it stops working again, so I’ll need to order some more plugs.
More money.
Whoever said vanlife was a cheaper living alternative?

In the last few months, I’ve spent a lot of money on van repairs and improvements, and I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to put much more into it.
I’m considering selling this van next year and replacing it with something bigger with more living space. I want to claw back some of the money I’ve spent when I sell Noah, but it’s reaching the point where if I spend any more on him, I won’t be able to.
It’s a tricky balance between being comfortable (he is my house, after all) and being sensible with my money to not lose too much when I come to let go.

My dream is to own a Luton box van. They have the perfect living space, and everything is square, making it much easier to convert.
I’m intimidated by the size, though, and the thought of driving something that huge does cause me some concern. Will I fit into car parks? How much will one of those cost to insure? Will campsites still accept me? Will repair costs be horrific?

I plan to do some research over the next couple of months and then decide between buying a larger panel van or jumping to a Luton. The Luton conversions look so homely, and I’d have all the space I need, so I hope to make it work.

It does mean that I’d be converting the van myself, though, as there are very few ready-made Luton campervans out there, and the ones that do exist are usually over 3.5 tons.
I don’t want to do an HGV licence, so I’ll need to find a 3.5-ton Luton and ensure the conversion doesn’t add too much weight.

It’ll be an exciting project if I go ahead with it, though. I converted my first campervan years ago. It was a lot of fun, and it helped me learn what is necessary and what is overkill when building a conversion.

All of this needs to be put on the back burner for now until I’ve repaired the issues with my current van. The front panel is the first job on the list. But there are other jobs that I need to complete before I can sell.
It will probably take up the rest of the summer, so I see myself spending another winter in Noah.
Spring is the best time to sell a campervan, so it will line up nicely.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to find innovative storage solutions for all of my things and enjoy the space at the cottage while the weather is warm.

Fox
xx

May 25, 2025
Grumpy Spiders and a Power Upgrade

Great things have been achieved this week!

The Big May Clean is almost complete.
It’s taken longer than anticipated, but I’m on the home run!

All but the highest Alien Spiders have been evicted, and the Juicy Window Spiders are grumpily rebuilding their webs after I cleaned the windows.

Just one of many pans of dust and dirt removed from the cottage. I really don’t know how it all gets in.

For anyone wondering, the Alien Spiders are those weird, uppity-legged ones with rice-shaped bodies and hair-thin legs. I think they’re called Basement Spiders?
They started appearing inside the cottage a few years ago and quickly took over, killing all of the juicy spiders and not even earning their keep by catching flies.
They catch the poor juicy spiders, wrap them into a ball, and lay their eggs in them. Then they sit in the corners, holding their dead eggspider ball until it hatches, and the cycle continues.

I’d never disliked an insect until I met this kind. I think it’s the fact that they kill the poor juicy spiders who do nothing to deserve it.
So now, every time I spot one of these guys, I evict them immediately.

However, even with a ladder, the eaves are too high for me to reach. This gives the Alien Spiders a place of safety, and so naturally, it’s absolutely covered in their webs.
I plan to devise a long stick with some kind of duster on the end to clean up the webs—another task on the great cottage to-do list.

I found this giant Juicy Spider out in the porch, eating an Alien Spider. How the tables have turned!!

Anyway, the bulk of the dust and alien spiders have now been removed, and the cottage is starting to feel like her old self again. I even picked a small selection of wildflowers from the garden to brighten the place up.

My dad came over on Friday afternoon and cut the grass while I finished things off in the cottage. Then we cooked some burgers and sausages on a small disposable BBQ I found in the outhouse. I don’t remember buying it, but it must be left over from a camping trip, as cottage BBQs have traditionally been done over a garden fire.

We cracked open a nice bottle of dessert wine, which we picked up at the Camping and Caravanning Club show earlier this year. It was the perfect amount of food and drink, and it felt good to sit out in the garden with the freshly cut grass, listening to the birdsong.

Dad brought along a new lamp, which he also bought at the Camping and Caravanning Club Show. It’s similar to my paraffin lamp but runs on gas.

I spent Saturday upgrading the leisure battery in my campervan.
Since I bought this van last year, I’ve struggled with a measly 80-ah lead acid battery paired with my Anker 500wh portable power bank, which I use to power my laptop while working.

However, with the arrival of warm weather and the removal of winter electric hook-ups, the camper fridge has frequently complained that there’s not enough power in the lead acid battery, even when the sun has been shining on the solar panel all day.
It also complains on cloudy days because I have to charge the Anker battery using the 12v socket.

Since arriving back at the cottage, I’ve been using the 50-watt solar panel, which used to live on my car, to power the Anker battery on sunny days, which has helped a bit. But it hasn’t resolved the issue with the fridge on hot days, and I still struggle for power on overcast days.

This problem has meant that I’ve had to prioritise all of the leisure battery power for the fridge and occasionally charging the Anker battery, not even using my diesel heater on cold days as the fan takes a surprising amount of power while it’s running.

But no more! On Monday, I finally ordered a brand new 150-ah lithium battery, which should give me roughly three times the power of the old battery.
It should also recharge faster on sunny days, so this should end my power struggles.

The battery arrived the day after I ordered it, which was much faster than I’d expected. I went with an Eco Tree Lithium battery, after spending some time reading reviews on the internet.
The battery charge was half full when it arrived, so I dragged out the generator and charged it fully before the installation. I’d already anticipated the need for this and had ordered a plug-in Victron charger to do the job.

Charging up the battery before installation.

In the few hours it took to charge, I moved all the connection wires and the solar charge controller to the back of the van.
The new battery is too big to fit under the driver’s seat where the old battery lived. Because I plan to take it with me when I upgrade the van, I’ve just installed it underneath the rock n roll bed in the back for now.

Before disconnecting the solar charge controller, I had to climb onto the campervan roof to cover the solar panel with a blanket, as disconnecting a live solar panel is dangerous.

Doesn’t the solar panel look cosy?

After that, it was just a case of disconnecting the charger wires from the old battery, unthreading the cables from behind the cupboards (the solar wires come in at the back of the van, and so they’d been threaded through to the front), and connecting up the cables again at the other end.

The new battery has much thicker cables going to the fuse box, so I can use things like my 12v cooking pot and 12v iron without the risk of pulling too much current through the cables.
My dad showed me how to apply the lugs needed to connect either end of the cable. It was fun to learn, as I’ve previously only used the small wire crimping tools, and this time, we had to use the big hydraulic ones.
I’m lucky that my dad is a trained electrical engineer and has also renovated a house or two, so he usually has the tools I need.

Van improvement days always leave the van in complete carnage. Here’s a picture of what happens when you have to reach the little nooks and crannies for wiring purposes!

It was hard work, but I’m already enjoying the benefits.
Last night, I made some prawn ramen by sticking everything in the 12v cooking pot and leaving it to slowly cook as I tidied up the mess in the van. So easy and delicious!
Today, I’m charging the Anker battery using the 12v socket, and the fridge is happily chugging along without complaint. Blissful harmony is restored to the van!

I’ve yet to try out the little 12v iron I found on eBay a few weeks ago.
Not only will it help me to look neater by not wearing crinkled clothing, but it’ll also help with my sewing projects.
I’ve been unable to complete many sewing projects since I moved off the winter electric hook-up. An iron is necessary to press the seams, but even my travel iron needs too much power for the Anker battery to manage.
I already have a few sewing projects in mind, so it’ll be nice to start them once the main jobs are finished in the cottage and the van.

It’s a relief to resolve the electricity problem finally.
I’m now in a position where I shouldn’t need to worry about saving power to ensure I can run my work laptop and fridge, even if there are a few overcast days in a row.
Later down the line, if it turns out 150-ah is not quite enough to run all of my things, I know that I can easily buy a second battery and wire it in series without making any more changes to the existing cable setup.

After all the hard work this week, I’ve decided that today will be a lazy day. The weather outside is windy and overcast, but I’m cosy indoors, napping, reading, and writing this blog post.
The perfect end to a busy week.

Toasting the feet.

I hope you’re all enjoying your Sunday, too.

Fox
xx

May 18, 2025
A bit of a backstory

I mostly live the Vanlife in my trusty campervan, Noah. Noah is a short-wheelbase Ford Transit Custom with a pop-top roof and very little storage space. I love him dearly and have just spent a wonderfully cosy winter travelling around different campsites in the UK.

I bought Noah in the middle of last year after recovering from a serious climbing accident, which left me unable to walk for over a year. By the time I could walk again, I had massively itchy feet and wanted to spend as much time outdoors as possible.

Before my accident, I lived between my off-grid cottage, which I rent from a lovely farming family in Ripon, and various accommodations mostly found on Spareroom.com.
The rented rooms mostly came about because while the cottage is fantastic in the summer – peaceful, surrounded by nature, off the beaten track – life is not so comfortable in the winter.

Made of stone, she holds no heat, and the two fires struggle to heat even a small area of the living space in the depths of winter.
She’s also at the bottom of a sloping field, which becomes very boggy in the wet months, making it impossible for even a 4×4 vehicle to get up and down, never mind a little campervan. (Or the estate car, which I had before Noah).

Being unable to drive in and out means ferrying shopping and other supplies from the top of the field by wheelbarrow. (Whoever invented the wheelbarrow was an absolute genius).
There’s no running water either, so drinking water must be carried in, along with food and other essentials.
Between the biting cold and the difficulties getting in and out, the cottage becomes a difficult living option in the winter.

However, rather than this being a downside of cottage living, I see it as a benefit. I used my winters as an opportunity to try living in different areas of the UK. As a result, I’m well-travelled and have met some wonderful people along the way.

At the time of my accident, I lived in a gorgeous old house in Spennymoor, just on the outskirts of Durham. I loved my room, with its enormous old fireplace big enough to step into, my Bedknobs and Broomsticks style brass bed, and the amazing picture window which opened up like a door into the walled back garden, enabling me to climb directly out, or on sunny days have it wide open and feel like I was out in the garden while still being in my room.

Alas, after the accident, I had to move, as I was wheelchair bound and there were too many tight spaces and steps for me to manage.
I was also unable to return to the cottage, as her access is definitely not wheelchair friendly.

However, after leaving the hospital, I was lucky enough to find a lady in Darlington who was looking for someone to live in her house and take care of it while she lived with her mother, who was sick and recovering from an illness.
Technically a lodger, I paid a very reasonable fee for a room in the house, but had the whole place to myself for the entire year and a half I lived there.

It was the perfect space for my recovery. Set back into a small newbuild estate, it had good bus links into town but was quiet enough that I could take myself out on daily wheelchair ‘rolls’ without being in too much danger of getting squashed by traffic.
Being in a wheelchair for six months gave me a whole new appreciation for people who spend their lives in one. Britain seems like quite a wheelchair-friendly, accessible place until you experience wheelchair living firsthand.

By the time my leg bones had (finally) decided to stick back together, I was desperate to get back out and start driving again. Those first few weeks back in my car were nerve-wracking, but I pushed through and didn’t let the anxiety take over.
After a few weeks back behind the wheel, I started to get the vanlife itch again.

I’d already lived the vanlife for two years, between 2016 to 2018, the same year I started renting the cottage.
It ended abruptly when I returned from work one day to find my van, Gomez, nowhere to be seen, and I never saw him again.
The police were less than useless, logging the case and then closing it immediately unless ‘something came up’.
They refused to even check the nearby security cameras, which could have easily given them ‘something’ to go on.

I was sad about losing my van, which I’d lovingly converted into a comfortable living space.
Still, I accepted the loss and decided that perhaps the universe was nudging me towards a different path.

I’d been considering selling Gomez and swapping him out for a 4×4, which would be more suitable for cottage life, and so after the theft, I bought an old Nissan X-trail.
Unfortunately, that vehicle was an absolute nightmare of intermittent, untraceable faults, which caused it to limp along at 30 miles per hour regularly, sometimes even on the motorway, and always when it was most inconvenient. In the end, I replaced it with a trusty Ford Focus Estate, whom I named Egg because he was a good egg, and I was so relieved after having such a rotten egg before him.

I never imagined I’d go back to vanlife after suffering that loss, but after being cooped up for so long, the thought of living in a van, with the outside world on my doorstep, was starting to appeal again.
And so along came Noah, and I’m so glad I decided to try again because so far, I’ve had a fantastic time.

Now, summer has arrived again, and after two years away, I’ve finally returned to the cottage.
I did manage a couple of trips down with my dad during my recovery, once in the wheelchair and then later with my crutch. But otherwise, I’ve barely seen her.

My dad, bless him, has regularly visited to keep the lawn in check and let some fresh air into the place. I suspect he’s starting to fall in love with her, just as I have.
Thanks to his efforts, she’s looking less dishevelled from the outside than I’d expected.

Inside is a different story.

The mice have had a whale of a time.
They ate the bird nuts. They ate the chair legs. They even ate an entire box of tealights, leaving only the metal dishes behind.
I imagine they had a bellyache after that one.
I also found little nests everywhere. In my oven glove, behind a sofa cushion, in the back of a drawer.

Yes, those mice lived their best lives while I was away.

Luckily, they moved out in the spring, leaving their discarded winter homes for me to clean up. Thank you, mice.
I can imagine them practically rolling out of the cottage, fat, contented, and ready for a lovely summer.

The spiders haven’t been doing too badly for themselves either. A carpet of webbing covers the eves, and in every corner, at least three spiders sit, staring at me in the hope that if they sit still enough, I won’t notice and evict them. They hope in vain.
Although I do like to allow the fat juicy ones to stay in the kitchen window, as they’re very good at catching the giant bluebottles, who love to zoom in and buzz around loudly when the front door is kept open on dry days.
Thanks to the efforts of the window spiders, all is usually quiet again by teatime.

Everywhere is a layer of dust, and the fires are cold, damp and reluctant to be awakened from their damp slumber.
I’m calling this month ‘The Big May Clean’. Since it may take all month to set things in order.

Still, it’s nice to finally be back. There was a deep feeling of calm, groundedness as I opened the big oak door and stepped inside, breathing in the ‘cottage smell’ for the first time in far too long.

I’m looking forward to enjoying another glorious off-grid summer.

Fox
xx

May 11, 2025