Smell the petrol

One family's thoughts on how to travel the world without leaving home, much. This post is by Nicola

I'm ashamed of myself really: in just two weeks of holidaying I've managed to drive nearly 1,000 miles. Most of this was local trips in Yorkshire, although the big mileage came from an up and down of the A1, plus a return journey from Carlisle to Wast Water. Although the family also clocked up the miles on the gear-changing, brake-waring crossing of Hard Knott pass between Boot and Ambleside.

Because we need to drive so little, I usually stick to a membership car club scheme, Streetcar. But this time it was more convenient to rent the cars from Sixt.

As a result of this I've been into a couple of motorway service stations - better for clean loos than most train stations still - and nowadays also serving a good cup of coffee, but otherwise soleless places. Assuming it is not an April Fool (and we are months out as I am writing this in August) there are plans in the Cotswolds to build an apparently "green service station" with a grass roof, electric vehicle refuelling points, and a veg patch. The full story is in the Guardian here.

What struck me about the service stations on the A1 was they were an identical layout, and nothing to tell me where in the world I was. Apparently the kit-design is the way to make cost and building savings - you create a model that can be dumped anywhere you acquire the land, a bit like Lego. So if this so-called green service station was to go ahead it would make sense to build it just like all the others. Or to make a model that would be acceptable to all the other service station developers.

I wonder if there is still time to ask the question: do we need yet another service station? I'm guessing this is a no, even if you could pour unleaded petrol into your car while munching on a locally-sourced goat's cheese sarnie.

Stories round the woodburner

Pete, Nicola, Lola and Nell spent the summer of 2007 travelling around Britain without racking up their carbon budget. We're home now but we still love travelling. Here's how we try and do it keeping to a low carbon footprint and getting a taste of everywhere in the world. This post is by Nicola.

One of the things I love about visiting people in the countryside is their tendency in the winter to have wood burning stoves. If the wood is sourced from the right place - and I'm working on this - then you can have carbon neutral space heating.

After long talks, debates and saving up we now have an Aga Little Wenlock woodburner fitted (suitable for smokeless zones) where our Victorian fireplace used to be. It's pretty warm today - 16C - but last weekend, when it was a bit colder, we set it alight both evenings with amazingly good results. In fact the woodburner's efficiency made our sitting room warm enough for me to stay up late (chatting), rather than retire with a hot water bottle to bed at 9pm. Its cosy glow reminds me of Hannah's in Wales and Exeter, and my childhood in Hertfordshire. Pete says - rather happily - that the atmosphere in our living room hints at warm ups by the pub after breath-freezing days in the Lakes and Yorkshire.

Of course you need kindling to light it, and so there's a new task for the children (see pic). Here's Nell and her three year old cousin Jago helping me collect up a big bag of twigs off an ash tree, which all fell down after a night of gales.

Searching for kindling, copying great ideas (I think the Swedes invented the woodburner, just checking) and being able to story around the fire make autumn and winter such a pleasure. next project may be to plant some more trees...

Heather on Ilkley Moor

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell love to travel - but try not to rack up their carbon footprint as they go. Here's how...

A suprisingly beautiful day in west Yorkshire (we are staying in Shipley as part of a house swap with friends) inspired us to go to Ilkley and up to the famous moor. Anyone who has been here would know that Ilkley is a busy tourist spot, there's even a Pizza Express and an M&S at the station - amazing if you compare it to Keighley which isn't so far away.

In fact it's been a busy tourist trap for years. Charles Darwin stayed here with his family, at a big house now called Hillside (with blue plaque), to correct the proofs of Origin of Species in 1859. Darwin always thought he was ailing so he came partly to try out the waters at White Wells. Nowadays it is a cafe (flags from all nations up when it is open) but then you popped up for an icy plunge bath. The Victorian copy writers managed to convince the public that the Romans used to use it and that it was an unmissable experience with water that is "mellifluent, diaphanous, limpid, luminous transparent, pellucid" and the "nectar of gods and goddesses".

Darwin probably believed them, and probably had a dip too. When you realise how gullible he could be it makes his discoveries all the more amazing.

But we're tourists too - so off we go along the path to the Rocky Valley and over to the Cow & Calf rocks but on a route that just misses the Pancake rocks. On the way Pete is determined to see the cup marked rocks (there are masses marked on OS maps in this area) but when we find one scored with rings he dismisses it as local (possibly Victorian) grafitti. How we laugh when he later looks at the map and realises that was the real McCoy.

Just as they probably said about Darwin in Chile we rather implied that when it comes to fools on the look out for rocks/specimens, etc, well there's one born every minute.

And then we walked back down the path to the train station via a cart stall offering Yorkshiredales ice creams by a long-suffering, midge bitten Pole or Romanian man. I was very happy to buy his cones and stuffed with sugary cream quickly shot Ilkely Moor into the best place for a walk that I know. In summer it's got everything: prehistory, rocks, signage, controversy, scrambling opps and a cafe and ice creams.

Bah humbug

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell are enjoying travelling the world without hiking up their carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola

We are all sweet on Yorkshire and have already managed to visit for a weekend this January. Our friends’ house was a bit parky (you could see your breath in all the upstairs rooms and it was pretty chilly downstairs too before the fires were lit). But it helped us realize how tough people had to be before central heating, and how much warmer our home has become thanks to tackling the draughts.

Over the weekend we soon realised that you need to keep busy - ideally outside - in order to stay warm. I cycled miles to keep my blood circulating, and the kids rode ponies too (well Wurzel, see below) for added adrenalin we had a close encounter with a hedge trimmer...

Maybe only visitors feel the cold up North? The 13 and 9 year old who live there didn't seem to think it was that chilly and rarely wore more than a T and a sweatshirt.

I should have bought them all thermals, instead for a treat I let the younger kids all choose a monster bag of sweets. In the pic at the top Nell, 7; Lola, 10 and Ned, 9 show off their swag.

You don’t have to go to Masham (also the home of the Black Sheep Brewery) in North Yorkshire to get your hands on their aniseed balls, fudge, flying saucers, traffic light lollies and other favourites. You can also log on here for old-fashioned sweetie choices.

War of the Roses

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

There’s not much brickwork left at Sandal Castle http://www.wakefieldmuseums.org/ – a pleasing bus ride on the 110 from Wakefield – but that didn’t stop the kids marching around the ragwort fringed paths up to the motte and bailey singing the appropriate nursery rhyme:
“Oh the grand old Duke of York,
He had 10,000 men
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he marched them down again.

And when they were up
They were up
And when they were down
They were down
And when they were only half way up
They were neither up nor down.”

We’d already met an eccentric local historian, John, who’d explained that the grand old Duke of York was Richard of York (Richard III) who’d gone out one dark Christmas evening (30th Dec 1460) looking for food. As Macdonalds (!) was closed he headed for Burger King (!!) but unfortunately ran into some nasty Lancastrians and lost his head. To add insult his head was then placed on a spike at Micklegate in York. Lola adored this story but Nell remains a little puzzled about why Burger King…

The following year Richard’s son got revenge at what is known still as England’s bloodiest homeground battle at Towston near Tadcaster and becomes Edward IV. The Lancastrians (red rose wearers) might well have won this if their arrows hadn’t fallen short in the windy conditions allowing the Yorkists to pick them up and fire them back. This was only really the start of the Wars of the Roses, an ignominious phase in British history that lasts from 1455-1485.

It gives me a certain pleasure to know that Pete (who went to Lancaster uni) and I (ex York) are in someways still gluing together that entente.

Tree hug

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

It turns out that a stroll in the country is packed with scary moments – there’s the unprovoked wasp attack on Lola; avoiding giant hemlock along the River Cover which can blister your body and dealing with bored young bullocks that want to charge a short-legged yapping daschound (Truffle) mowing down the humans in their field in the process. Luckily my godson George, and the rest of our gang survived to tell our tale of derring-do (ie, how we threw ourselves over the barbed wire fence and did a major detour during the six and a half mile walk). In this photo we are measuring a very fat and fine beech tree on the path from Jerveaux Abbey to the Cover Bridge Inn. It came in at five hugs. Apparently the Woodland Trust want all ancient trees recorded, and you can find out how at http://www.woodland-trust.org.uk/.

Hear say

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

It may not be true but one of the people I've met on the buses today, John, reckons that Sheffield's floods are over, even with two more days of heavy rain forecast. "Course we're twinned with Atlantis," was his deadpan end to our conversation - which made me laugh a lot.

If we can find some snorkels in the secondhand shops where we are staying then we will take the train for a good look around.

On the buses

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

It’s not your obvious tourist destination, and yet Wakefield is a brilliant place to stay. It’s in Yorkshire (good), boasts at having part-educated sculptural legends Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore (v gd) and seems full of friendly people (v v gd as I’m constantly getting lost as I make my way around the city and having to ask for directions which invariably include instructions for me to “turn right at the cathedral”). And the tourist info centre was voted the best in Yorkshire last year (2006).

But what I like best about Wakefield is the bus station. It’s clean, the departures board and timetables are easy to understand, there are lots of places to sit, and even on a Sunday morning two shops were open – Bakers Oven for snacks and WH Smith for the papers. Admittedly my last experience hanging around at a bus station was in the disaster of Workington. It may have had the first covered passenger waiting area in Britain but hasn’t yet realized that these days we also need somewhere to rest our weary legs while we wait for our bus to turn up.

Andy Goldsworthy rocks

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola (the Goldsworthy tribute band pic is on the right)

I’ve waited about six years to see it, but when Nell was told we were off to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park http://www.ysp.co.uk/ she had a meltdown. Half an hour later she’d forgotten and was skipping to the bus which runs hourly, even on a Sunday, from Wakefield to West Bretton and a short (unsigned) walk into the park.

It turns out that Nell is not the only child to disagree violently with her mum. On the 435 an only just still blonde woman, with a disconcerting bruise and cut on her right cheek, chats to us about life then and now in west Yorkshire and the famous sculpture park.

“My daughter loves it up there, but I just see three men with holes in them. It’s target practice not art,” she says happily as the bus passes The Station Pub and into the countryside again. “But when we were young we’d spend all day up there, looking for frogs. It never used to rain then. These days I think the sun has died that's why I always take this mac...” With her commentary, at turns painful and then delightful, the journey passes fast. Thanks also to her directions we enter the park at the controversial spot - Jonathan Borofsky’s tree-height Molecule Man 1+1+1. The girls siddle into a photographic spot by it, but as I snap they start squabbling, just like the giant men arguing above.

Tempers calm after a reviving hot chocolate so we walk to the Andy Goldsworthy’s rooms in the Underground Gallery. Here Nell undergoes a cathartic change. “This is cool,” she says breathing heavily as we walk into the second room, done out as an inverse bird’s nest made from sweet chestnut coppice carefully slotted together. In the third she’s the one to spot that the cracking clay is held together with hair – from users of Barnsley, Wakefield and Huddersfield hairdressers during Christmas 2006. And in the fourth Nell stares for nearly 10 still minutes at the curtain of horse chestnut stalks in front of us. Assuming these wonderful, and increasingly fragile, pieces don’t collapse you too can see the show until 6 January 2008 http://www.ysp.co.uk/ and also http://www.cc.gla.ac.uk/goldsworthy. The exhibition catalogue - celebrating his 30 year connection with YSP - provides an excellent future memory jog too if you are willing to part with #15 for it, Andy Goldsworthy at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (or just borrow it from me).

It’s still raining when we emerge from this bit of the show but Lola, Nell and I don't care; Goldsworthy makes us want to reconnect with every one of the elements. Which is why we also head to the Longside Gallery (a barn) where Goldsworthy has created his "shit" work: a river window from cow dung (genius!); a series of sheep feet canvases and a mud ball from the creation clean-up. He's also experimented, Damian Hirst style, with blood droplets on snow from a roadkill hare, and a deer.

Nell, ever bloodthirsty, adores these pieces too. I hope this doesn’t indicate a scary mother-daughter future ahead.

Travel tears

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola (pic is of my eyes, prickly & bloodshot!)

As we waited for a train to take us to Wakefield in west Yorkshire the soon not-to-be GNER service to Edinburgh pulled into the station. Over the crackly tannoy I heard “…calling at Durham, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Edinburgh..” and realized that it wasn’t just all change at GNER (Stage Coach is planning to take over the franchise in December), we are also close to the end of the northern leg of our world tour around Britain.

Less dramatically this means going back home to London, via Hertfordshire. But it also means back to the routines, and bills and interminably doing things I’ve done before, until I can do them no longer. Which is why at Darlington Station I sat down and wept until our own train pulled in; then got into the wrong carriage and ended up in a first class seat risking a penalty fare.

“We’re not leaving Yorkshire,” said Pete passing me the map and a Wensleydale cheese sandwich in a bid to cheer me up. “We’re going to Wakefield.” And soon we weren’t leaving our last happy stay near Leyburn on the edge of the Dales, but speeding towards the next exciting stop-off.

A better set of ruins

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

We've been conned: the pamphlets say that Jervaulx is the second best preserved abbey but really it is just a few stone walls compared to the amazing remains left at Easby Abbey which all Coast to Coast walkers pad past.

We took our borrowed dogs (Daisy and Truffle) to the lovely market town of Richmond for a walk by the river and were stunned to see that Easby Abbey - once inhabited by the White Monks - still has chunks of roof and double height walls. There wasn't time to play games this time but we had fun seeking out pigeon nests using Pete's torch (carried for emergencies and shadowy bits of historic buildings).

Birthday portrait

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Here's Pete (with Daisy and Truffle) musing on the nature of limestone pavements (or his new great age) by the River Swale in Wensleydale.

One down, six to go

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

There's a horsy saying that you are only a rider if you've fallen off seven times. (The other saying is less positively that pride comes before a fall). And today Lola came one fall closer to the jockey target after Silver shied when a bird flew up as we cantered across a stubble field. Thankfully Lola was unhurt and got straight back on, carried on with the canter and then insisted on doing some jumps. So here's a lovely pic of her all on her own grinning as she rides.

Talking about hedgehogs

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola (pic is of Nell with a giant puffball not a hedgehog!)

First my mum reports finding a hedgehog in her new house in Hertfordshire which is turning its nose up at dogmeat treats. Then we read about the unfortunate specimen who was used for hurling at Ballymena in Northern Ireland and now we are inundated with hedgehog sightings. Most are run over, poor things, but at our last stop in Hexham we also saw one speeding across the cul de sac road late one evening being mobbed by a magpie.

And now in Yorkshire on one of our regular evening strolls with the dogs we found two on just a short stretch of lane. The first was roadkill, and dead enough to have no fleas on its spines. The next was a dazed female who we moved out of the way of traffic by lifting her on to a wall and into a garden raised about a metre above the road. About an hour later I suddenly realised the poor 'hog had probably just thrown herself out of the garden in a bid to find a new home but when we went back to the spot we'd left her curled in a tight, prickly ball she was gone - hopefully to a safe location away from traffic and slug pellets.

It's very exciting seeing a live hedgehog, though it did leave Pete musing about the hedgehog flavoured crisps of the 1980s born after a sketch on the satirical show Not the Nine O'Clock News. Nell seems keen to try them.

Games at the ruined abbey

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Every time I visit the North Riding area Yorkshire I seem to visit Jervaulx Abbey, near Leyburn http://www.jervaulxabbey.com/. This was the spiritual birthplace of Wensleydale cheese – created by the Cistercian monks who came from France after the Norman Conquest in 1066. The abbey was destroyed by Henry VIII – a topic Nell can’t get enough of – and somehow has stayed in private hands. This means you pay your #2 entry fee into an honesty box. It’s a huge place, by the River Ure, and totally romantic with its wild flowers growing along, beside and in the arches and tumbling down brickwork. There are apparently more than 200 species but the one dominating this week in August is thyme. There’s also a profusion of blackberries – some with ripe fruit though they were disgustingly sour – and also wild raspberry canes. I might not have noticed them if we hadn't played hide and seek which gave me plenty of opportunity while hiding to study them and while seeking to think about possible bolt holes.

Last time we were here (2005) Lola remembers playing What's the time Mr Wolf, but Nell was too young to remember so to her the whole Jervaulx Abbey experience feels first time. And it does for us too when we go to the nearby cafe and find totally stunning food at very reasonable prices - lettuce soup, savoury scones served with chunks of Wensleydale cheese, rarebits and homemade cakes. There's gluten free options too. It's amazing how good the food is in this area, I'm sure it's better than a few years ago, and I know that if we were in Scotland it's all too likely that we'd be eating chips rather than enjoying this foodie paradise.

Feels like Brussels

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

When we had the idea to travel around Britain pretending to be in different parts of the world I’d assumed Brussels would be easy to find. We could try mussels and mayonnaise, or Belgian beer eaten on the streets and then finished off with fondant filled chocolates. We tried this out at a restaurant in Upper Street, London but the idea felt so forced, and also very unBelgian that I almost gave up the concept. But as we explored the Forbidden Corner, an eccentric grotto in Yorkshire http://www.yorkshirenet.co.uk/theforbiddencorner designed by yet another Armstrong (see previous blog entries) – possibly in memory of his horse Hercules – we found a Manequin Pis that actually wees over lost passers-by (see what he did to Nell), just like he more politely does in Brussels on one of those back lanes you can't help but get lost in.

Admittedly in Yorkshire there is a warning, Cave Aquae, but you need to know your Latin to avoid wet trouser legs.

At the ice cream parlour

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Have just tasted the best ice cream made by Brymor, http://www.brymordairy.co.uk/, a Yorkshire Dales farm/firm which they serve up at their farm and ice cream parlour a few miles out of Masham (and a good place to visit whether it is scorching or like today, pouring with rain). Before choosing flavours we went into the barn to pet their cute chestnut-coloured Gurnsey calves(see pic), avoiding their long scratchy tongues while reading info about the life of a milking cow. It doesn’t look that good a career (you grow up, give birth, lose your baby, get woken for milking at 5am for the next 360 days, then have a semi break for six weeks, give birth and the whole cycle starts again…) and yet cows always seem to be content lying around their fields chewing the cud (which of course releases tonnes of methane one of the gases responsible for changing our climate).

Brymor makes posh ice cream cakes and giant knickerbocker glories but the girls behind the counter seemed just as happy to serve up single flavour scoops in waffle cones (we picked chocoholic, vanilla with almond toffee, summer fruits, fudge). I didn’t like to point it out to my children as they enjoyed their ice cream, but in one of the freezers surrounding the parlour was an area devoted to veal products. But it’s a conversation that better be had soon.

Where to live?

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

"We've had a lot of homes," muses Lola as we arrive at this week's holiday home, a place we are house-sitting in Yorkshire (not the pic above!). I think that home ought to be where you are right now, but deep in my psyche is also the gently rolling arable hills of the Herts/Essex borders - the area Andrew Motion has recently written about in his exquisite childhood memoir, In the Blood. He makes it clear how to grow up normalish despite a backpack of strange upper middle class ideas about what is right, and what is expected. The twist for him is how his childhood was severed by his mum's horrible accident out hunting.

At the moment Lola and Nell don't seem to have a trace of snobbery in where or what home is. They don't even need it to be close to shops as they are still a long way from being the sort of females Sunderland manager Roy Keane recently berated for stopping players moving to the north east.

Long may this last as they won't be handed homes on a plate, or even be able to anticipate enough cash from me and Pete to be able to get a mortgage on a flat in their early 20s. If I look in an estate agents' window (eg, while waiting for Pete or because I'm nosing around somewhere) the girls are as likely to choose a suburban '70s build as a stockbroker's palace. Right now they love home, London specifically, best. But they also love to muse as we pad around places how they'd "love to live in a castle" (see pic), or, as we were searching for the mermaid pool on Burgh Island in Devon "on an island" http://www.burghisland.com/.

On the latter location I can reassure them: they are islanders even if it's 800 miles by 100 plus (depending on where you do the measuring) so you can't see the edges.

As for castles. Well we have seen lots of castles, some with the roof on and plenty with just blue sky and clouds for decoration. But despite the variety Lola reckons that the best one she's ever seen is the Tower of London -visited on a school trip. "It's got masses of links with the Tudors, and prisons, secrets, jewels and the scratches of prisoners on the walls. I found one of a wild boar," she enthuses when I press for details.

Lola jumps

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

About six weeks ago my friend Fleur, who has already taught her four sons to ride plus numerous of their friends, took Lola out for a ride on the trusty Silver. Lola started on the lead rein – by the end she was cantering off it! Fleur said she had a grin like the Cheshire Cat’s. Now we are back in Yorkshire house-sitting for Fleur’s family and I’m able to take Lola out for a hack.

Truly it is weird riding out knowing that I am the mother and my companion is my daughter (see pic). One of George Monbiot's recent polemics in his column - about the rise of people playing farmers and horsiculture - made me wince http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2133120,00.html.

There is no way you can make riding horses cheap. Getting into riding is a good way of developing a habit that is going to make you poor, or develop a serious need for cash. And the better you get the more gear you need; then land and apparently a 6-bed former farmhouse with stabling etc. But not all of us: indeed I would argue that the more people know about horses the more:
(a) independent they become as thinkers and
(b) knowledgeable about the countryside - they aren't just driving through it, they are riding in it, noticing the road kill; anticipating the speeding white van and the flapping planning proposal application; stressing about the weather and how all this dampness is going to lower the quality of hay and straw as well as increase its price.

Admittedly these are hardly world changing bits of knowledge but if I hadn't ridden as a child I would never have become a green... or made a very determined decision to live in a city with the lowest carbon footprint I can manage... or become a born again riding instructor.

But for this week Lola is really enjoying the rides on her borrowed pony, and when we come back to the home paddock she begs me to let her try to jump. Fleur’s tip is to just get the learner on a schoolmaster, like Silver, to follow the pony in front. This is definitely not the Pony Club method but it made sense – no problems steering or acceleration for the learner. So I took my mount, Charlie, over three different sets of poles, including some low barrels, with Lola following safely and happily (thank goodness). So now she has got a taste for speeding along and a sense of how jumping feels.

This is very much the way I learnt to ride – some core lessons and then lots of practice hacking around looking for verges to canter along and fallen logs to pop over. I’ve always been amazed that at eight years I was thought capable enough to go out for rides on my own on Telstar. Obviously it’s more fun and safer to hack with a friend – but on the right pony, along quiet lanes with enough space to get out of the way of speeding cars I reckon Lola, who is now nine, could manage too.

In Yorkshire people often seem to drive fast but they invariably slow down, sometimes even stop, when they see horses on the road. Thank you to all those considerate drivers.

B is for bull

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

My dad loved this rhyme - it was in an old book helping children to learn the alphabet (I can also remember D for dahlia)

B is for bull
He's fierce and grim
It's best to keep away from him

It's not just foot and mouth that has us focusing, unfortunately again, on cattle. During our travels Nell has become obsessed by bulls - she sees them in more fields than they are in - and when we met her classmate Ethan down in Devon it turned out he has a similar interest. So this pic is of a handsome bull for all the five and six year olds out there...