Sunshine and showers

One of the benefits of moving to Yorkshire is the beautiful countryside right on our doorstep.  This weekend we drove all of 40 minutes from home to go camping in the middle of the Dales.  The forecast was for sunshine and showers, which sounded better than it had for the last little while.

Our friends Pippa and Ian joined us, so on the Saturday we had a lovely walk up the side of the dale.  Marisca climbed the last bit to the top:

And found a trig point to sit on:

Then utilised Daddy-transport for the rest of the walk, including a small detour to the top of Conistone Pie:

If you look at the left of the above photo you will see slightly greyer sky: this very rapidly turned into an almightly thunderstorm, complete with hail.  We were wet through in seconds and had nowhere to shelter from the rather painful hail, the largest of which was over 1 cm in diameter.  Ouch!  Thankfully, we got Marisca into her full rain cover in time so she was protected, and we made very rapid and squelchy progress back down the hill to the car and the campsite for a full change of clothes followed by tea and cake in Grassington. Everything is better after tea and cake.

The rest of the weekend was definitely sunshine and showers, so there are no more photos.  But we had a lovely time away and are now re-sorting all the camping gear for another holiday next week!