Bookings Officer

 

There’s nothing like being told you can’t go somewhere to make you want to go there! For me that ‘somewhere’ is the Yorkshire Dales, with the view across to Ingleborough teasing me every day. However, there is also something very focusing about spending time in a smaller area. I recall the fuel strike in 2000 which I spent in a static caravan with two toddlers. As the story unfolded on the radio, it seemed we would have a very dull holiday indeed, having only enough fuel to return home. However, it was magical. We came to know the farm and the local paths well and my younger son became more confident walking with help from the closer walls. It was blackberry picking time and we enhanced our caravan rations with plenty of these.
The situation we are in now is much more serious and yet it is still proving possible to experience a greater relationship with our immediate surroundings. Wildlife is thriving and we are likely to be communicating better with our neighbours, be it at the Thursday applause or through local support networks.
I went to take a photo of Ingleborough for this blog but found myself instead drawn to our nearer neighbours, the sheep and lambs in the adjacent field.
I am inspired by daily walks to compile a guide to local walks centred on the Old School for our future guests. Once or twice a week I go a little further afield by bike for my daily exercise and these relatively small distances now feel huge and adventurous!

Imagine how excited I will feel when I make it all the way over to Ingleborough when the time comes!

Yealand Old School is currently closed due to Covid 19.

We will keep connecting with you here and on Facebook to let you know how things are looking in the grounds and immediate vicinity.

Today was the first grass cut in the burial ground. The wildflower meadow has primroses and celandines flowering.

In spite of dramatic, extreme weather recently, small hints of the spring to come are visible on my walk around Hyning Scout woods and Summerhouse Hill today. Wild greens will soon be ready for picking; Garlic mustard, Nettle, Wild garlic, and less wild ones in the form of early purple sprouting brocolli in the veg beds. Most impressive of all are the sounds; the westerly wind is ROARING through the trees atop the hill; louder than the busiest of roads! The starlings are sweeping past en masse on their flight to Leighton Moss each dusk; the sound as astonishing as the sight!