Confused at Hill Farm

 Thursday 29/12/22

Even though the snow and extreme cold has passed, there is still ice about.
These are the swirling patterns on a cover outside.

As 2022 comes to an end, we have completed our final house sit for the year and returned to our campsite at Hill Farm.  

When we arrived, the wind was howling from the South and is expected to blow until we leave so we decided to reverse into our parking spot.  We usually park facing the field for the view but prefer to take strong winds from the front of Bokkie as the vents then face out of the wind and the bicycles and bike cover are protected by Bokkie.

However, this caused an unexpected problem - confusion!  We have stayed here quite a few times recently and, for some reason, it felt completely wrong to be pointing the wrong way.  We thought it would improve when darkness fell and we lost our outside references but once Bokkie was all closed up we could hear the occasional car coming past on the road.  The only problem was, they kept going past on the 'wrong' side and sounded to us as though they we going straight through the campsite.

Aren't our brains funny things?

We had deliberately planned to fill 2022 with house sits for various reasons, and ended up doing just that.  We completed 11 sits, sitting 294 days in total and looked after 18 dogs, 5 horses, 4 cats, 7 birds and 10 other little furry creatures.

Although we both love dogs, looking after other people's dogs can be quite difficult and we are definitely ready to go dog-free (and dog-hair free!) for a while and are looking forward to our familiar Brittany with the cats, Jess and Jasper, starting in about a  a week.

Possibly the cutest - definitely the noisiest birds we looked after.

It was a pleasure looking after these two over Christmas.

The rough plan for 2023, with our shiny new French visas, is to spend three months in Brittany,  then a short trip to South Africa and finally to travel in Europe until October-ish when we will head back to Brittany if all goes according to plan.

We are now staying at this campsite until New Year's Day and will then travel down to Canterbury for a night before taking the Eurotunnel across to France on the 2nd.

We hope you all have a sensible New Year's eve and a fantastic New Year ahead!

Bonus pic:  We have spent so much time at the Brittany sit, that Google satellite has captured Bokkie parked on the property so we are now a permanent fixture there!

You can get an idea of the size of the garden / property.

Snowy Little Chalfont

 Tuesday 13/12/22

We woke early yesterday morning to sound of snow falling on Bokkie's roof, hoping that it would just be a light dusting as we needed to move on to our next sit.  

When it got light, we could see there was a dense covering of around 3cm of snow - I felt it shouldn't present too much of a problem.

We woke up to a rather white scene!

We had to get our of our parking spot and drive a short way up a hill to get to the main farm driveway, from there it was another short, downhill drive to the tar road which would hopefully be clear by the time we needed to move.  Our neighbour also usually left in the mornings so we could check to make sure he got out okay.

The frost has now been covered by snow

Well, sure enough, he packed up mid-morning, reversed out of his spot, pointed his nose up the hill, gunned the engine...  and slid backwards down the hill.  He swung back into his parking spot and tried to reverse up the hill, with the same result.  Except this time it was even worse and he was getting rather close to Bokkie's backside.  Eventually he realised it wasn't going to work and he got the aged farmer to pull him out with his 4x4, in itself a scary manoeuvre, which we watched in trepidation.

I was determined to spare Bokkie the indignity of being towed out, so we waited until a bit later (and there were no witnesses) before trying it ourselves.  By then all the tracks from the other attempt had frozen making it even more treacherous.  Toni chipped away at the worst bits with our tiny recovery spade (slipping and falling on the ice while as well), and soon it was time to test Bokkie.

I reversed out and she spun a little so Toni chipped some more ice in front of the wheels, I put Bokkie in second gear and she chugged cheerfully up the hill at an idle.  What a superstar!

The snow has turned the garden into a winter wonderland

Tiggy, Bramble, Orio, Sprite and Blue

We took a slow drive to Amersham to do some shopping before heading to the final sit for the year.  It is a lovely warm house with an elderly Jack Russell / Norfolk Terrier cross, a Golden Lab and three (noisy) budgies to look after.  

The owners kindly put up a Christmas tree for us as well, and they have now headed to sunny Antigua with their kids.

The snow looks like custom cushions on the patio furniture

We're staying for two weeks so will enjoy Christmas here with Charmaine, and then head off again on the 28'th.  Hopefully there is a slight thawing of the weather after this icy blast! 

Frosty walk to Tring

 Sunday 11/12/22

The cold snap continues here on the hill and the weather alternates between crisp, clear skies and a freezing fog.  Frost has been a permanent fixture since we arrived with temperatures rarely getting into positive territory.

A frosty, misty start to the day.

We've managed a nice long walk every day and decided to try to get to Tring.  Although it is a 6km drive away, it looked like the footpath network would get us there in only 3.5km so we set off.

The frost is absolutely amazing here!

Crispy leaf litter, Mother nature's art

The sun put up a valiant fight against the mist but ultimately lost.

It was a lovely walk with amazing views on the way there, although the walk back was much more misty.

Tring church

By the time we headed back the mist had really set in for the rest of the day.

Bokkie is doing an amazing job of keeping us and our water system nice and toasty and the dry weather means we have managed to get out enough to keep cabin fever at bay.  And before you think we're 'roughing it', there is a gentleman staying here in a tent until Christmas eve...  Then he moves to Snowdonia - he must be made of tough stuff!

Freezing at Hill Farm campsite

 Friday 09/12/22

We handed back the Stoke-house and animals to the owners and have headed for the hills - back to a now-familiar campsite near Wendover Woods.  The UK is experiencing a bitter cold-snap at the moment with temperatures plummeting to 6 below at night and by Sunday it will only get up to zero during the day.

Wendover Woods looked magical in the morning light

Not ideal conditions for camping but luckily Bokkie is very capable of keeping us toasty warm while we are inside.  Of course, going for walks in the icy conditions means taking extra precautions like making sure you take all the right gear, but we're enjoying it and had a lovely walk into Wendover today (8km round-trip).

Heavy frost

The condensate from the boiler freezes as it drips down on Bokkie's wheel arch

Bokkie had a few neighbours overnight but they have all left now.

Most of the campsite's water supply has frozen but luckily we have everything we need on board so should be fine.

We are here until Monday and we then tackle our final house-sit for 2022; two dogs and three budgies in Little Chalfont over Christmas.

Bonus pic: this house in Stoke Poges take the prize for best Christmas decorations we've seen to date, an entire elf village complete with railway.

Not happy with a just few fairy-lights, this owner has gone all-out!