New gadget, Swallow rescue, Extortionate price for two small cakes and pigeon poo!

 Peacocks!!! Noisy and kept us awake from first light. Where were they??? Went looking during the morning but not a sight of them did we see. There is a farm near to this car park so assumed they were kept there. Anyway one thing that did please us was sun shining through the windows. At last, a decent day forecasted and the solar panels doing the job of charging the leisure battery nicely.

One of the reasons for stopping at Helmsley was to collect a click and collect parcel from Amazon. Dave Ward had left a link in the comment section after I complained about our 300 watt inverter caning our batteries on charging the laptops.  Ian took a while reading the reviews and decided it was worth trying. It is a 90 Watt DC Universal Laptop Car Charger Inverter.  CLICK HERE for the link. We bought it from Amazon and true to their word, it arrived this morning at Helmsley Post Office.

The bottom photo shows all the connections for all the different computors on the market

A short walk past this car park, and we came to Helmsley Castle, another English Heritage site. Spent a couple of hours listening to the audio on the place and even had to perform a rescue of a Swallow trapped in one of the buildings. I had to climb over a rope that was across a no entry sign, Ian stayed in one doorway stopping it from going further into the rooms, while I shooed it toward the door opening. Took a while and good job no one else was there to witness it, but got the deed done eventually.

Almost got excited about seeing this owl. It's plastic though, which I think is there as a deterrent to stop the Swallows nesting.

After the visit we popped into Helmsley Village via the quick route. Stocked up with provisions at the Co Op and took a different route back. Oh, dear I wish we hadn't! Passing this cake shop it was too tempting not to go in. So we stupidly purchased two interesting looking cakes, Ian went to pay by card and was told they were £4.50 each! Ouch.....£9 for two small cakes....they had better be worth it! 

 

Back at MB and Ian tried the new gismo. Wow, what a difference, it was phenomenal. Hardley any draw on the battery, in fact the solar panel, which was now in the shade, was still showing a decent charge. I think now we have a new leisure battery and this gismo, we may well have cracked it.

This car park had toilets which were locked by 6 pm, so we took a quick dash over to them just before the time. Nearly at the loos and Ian gave a shout. Then came the swearing. "What ever is the matter?"  I asked. "Bloody pigeon just crapped all over my back!" came his annoyed reply. Well I did laugh and laugh, but I didn't find it quite so funny when I had to try and remove the stain from his white jumper!

 Those cakes....my God they were solid and very sweet. In fact too sickly chocolatey sweet! I managed half before giving up, the other half is in the fridge for the 'morrow. Ian, a chocoholic, also decided to save his half, "Not because I can't eat it all now" said he "But to keep you company tomorrow".......yea right I thought"

 And today's wildlife,

 

Amongst the raptors

 More of a picture post today.

We left Slingsby by 10 am and headed for Helmsley. On the agenda for today was the National Birds of Prey centre.

What an incredible place, and the work they do in saving the endangered raptors is commendable. Nearly all the birds were paired and several had chicks. All day we spent looking at the aviaries and with three shows to watch of flying displays by Eagles, Falcons and Owls, there was plenty to keep us occupied.

And so to the photos.

Snowy Owls

Lanner Falcon

Yellow billed Kites. Bottom L & R Catching a tasty morsel in midair and being mobbed by a crow.

African Fish Eagle

Barn Owl

Burrowing Owl

The Great Grey Owl

King Vulture

Steppe Eagle with chick

 Our park4night tonight is in the town car park! Helmsley long stay car park is free so long as you don't arrive before 6 pm. Helmsley Castle where we plan to visit is but a 5-minute walk from here and for the princely sum of £6 we can stay all day tomorrow. So far the new battery is performing well, but the test will be during the day when we don't actually move MB. Hopefully the solar panel will top up the battery.

Mud, mud, glorious mud.

 The day did not start well!. I had a telephone physio appointment booked for 8.30 am (to do with pain when my knee kept clicking) but I failed to check my phone last night to see if we had a signal. At 8.20 am I looked at the phone and panicked!  No signal showing and the message on top of the screen was for emergency calls only! Crikey, I shot out of MB, no jacket 'cos I didn't have time to put one on despite the fact it was raining, legged it as fast as I could to Slingsby Village and checked the phone again. Nop...nothing so I missed the appointment completely. On the reminder message sent to me 48 hours previously, it mentioned the cost to the NHS of £160 if appointments were missed, well I did try but felt it wasn't my fault that my phone provider Three was out of range. Anyway, after we left the site and once in Malton my phone sprang into life and I quickly phoned the number to make a new appointment. 7th July between 7.30 am and 8.30 am was the only one available.... good grief looks like my knee suffering will continue for the next couple of months!! Having explained to the operator about living on a boat and moving around the country with a good chance the signal would be non-existent again, she agreed to put a second phone number down as a back-up. (Ian's)

Whilst I was on the phone Ian arrived at Ian Browns Tyres. Our leisure battery was checked and confirmed it was on the way out. A 115 amp hour Yuasa leisure battery was purchased which has deep cycle capabilities and the assurance from the dealer that this was perfect for our needs on the motorhome. We will wait and see if he was correct!

Wing mirrors do come in handy.

 

Today's weather has been awful with sunshine and very heavy showers. Looking for somewhere to go and spend the afternoon, another English Heritage site was found at Wharram Percy Deserted Medieval Village not far from Malton. So with walking shoes and waterproofs, we set off for the mile walk. OMG. For most of the way the track was a quagmire and once on the site, had to dodge the cowpats and deep ruts made by the bullocks hooves. Unfortunately it was not what we expected. The odd impression of a building in the field and the only thing worth looking at was the medieval church and Mill Pond.

 

You can just make out the imprint of a house

I was knackered by the time we got back to MB. My knees screaming out at me, 'sit down', 'sit down'! A coffee was needed before we got going and by jove I was glad we got back when we did. We had the mother of all Thunderstorms and one poor lady was stuck outside with her small terrier getting drenched. She declined the offer of shelter saying her husband was on his way to fetch her.

 

It was early afternoon when we set off back to the camp site. The rain was still hammering down, and we have had to move from being on a grass pitch to hard standing due to becoming bogged down. Tomorrow we are back to wild camping so no power for the laptop other than that of our small inverter. I do hope the battery purchased today is man enough!

And wildlife seen on the walk,

Pickering to Whitby by steam.

Today the weather was almost perfect for our trip on the train to Whitby, just a tad chilly first thing.  They do say the sun shines down on the righteous and of course that must be us. 😉😇 It's about time too as we've had plenty of soggy days to contend with!

The tickets for the steam locomotive was for 9.20 am and with only a short walk to the station, we were there in plenty of time. Today the Locomotive taking us to Whitby was SR 4-6-0 Class S15 the same one that passed MB yesterday. Ian had booked carriage G and seats 9-11, the very last carriage with seats almost at the back. And we couldn't have wished for better because only one other couple got on.

Taken from inside MB

 

As per the norm with me, I took loads of photos

Taken from the train. We moved MB away from the track just in case someone else wanted the view.

Connecting the locomotive coupler to the rolling stock 

Locomotive 44671 passing

Window cleaning

We haven't been to Whitby for years and looked like a great place for a longer visit. We may do that  later this week although if we do go it would have to be earlier in the day and not later. The place was heaving on our arrival at 11 am and having kept away from people for 14 months, felt very uneasy at the number of people walking along the narrow streets.

I wonder if this would fit in our canal network 😁😉😏

Had a different Locomotive on the way back. A BR 2-6-4T Class 4MT

 And having to keep to the same carriage and seats,  we were now at the front of the loco. Gosh, the smell of burning coal and soot emitted from the chimney when I stuck my head out of the window brought back so many memories of my childhood when my brother and me were taken on trips to Southend. By the time we arrived back at Pickering my head and face was covered in small bits of clinker. On the way back I noticed this in the distance. It replaces the golf balls that was always seen on the horizon. The excerpt was taken from RAF Fylingdales 

The pyramid is the station’s latest and most powerful radar. Constructed in 1994, it replaced three 84-foot ‘golf balls’, built in the 1960s, which have since been dismantled. The base was initially designed to provide security and protection against potential nuclear attacks during the Cold War, and it is now known as the ‘eyes and ears’ of Northern Europe, with its main purpose being to provide early warning of incoming ballistic missiles. However, its role has been extended with a second objective: space surveillance.

Back on MB, and we travelled to a place called Malton. It is here that we get our leisure battery tested. We also booked into a caravan and camping site about 5 miles away at Slingsby, which also had a washing machine and trust me, it was sorely needed as we were fast running out of stuff to wear! Smalls could be washed by hand but jeans, T-shirts and jumpers were a different matter. Two machine loads, four drying cycles later, and it was all done. And the site had the added bonus of electric hookup which would keep the leisure battery topped up but more importantly, keep my laptop charged

And wildlife seen from the journey,

And from the car park at Pickering,