Tall tales and true: of Yorkshire moors and the byways of Surrey: Escape to the country

Our flight left at 2.45pm from Brisbane to London via Singapore which gave us a relaxing spell before takeoff to fit in a home cooked breakfast and a mid-morning coffee by the sea, so we arrived, thanks to Pete and Annie, with time to spare after checkin to fit in a light lunch and a little duty free shopping. All very kosher.

We were told Singapore Air would be packed, and it was, except for the seat next to me, which, again, was vacant, much to my delight. My luck continues to hold. I think this is the 6th year in a row I have had a seat beside me free after takeoff. As well, we were seated over the wings which is our favoured position, and our seats backed onto a bulkhead allowing us heaps of room to rest easy without bothering folk behind us. Singapore Air has this updated media system that allows you to set your own flight playlist as you take off, so I chose a pile of very interesting archeological documentaries, along with Rocketman, the movie, which kept me amused during a very pleasant trip. The second leg was a little more of a squeeze with no spare seats anywhere, but we have a penchant for choosing aisle seats for ease of access and space and that served us well for this 13½hr flight. Of which I slept 6½hrs according to my iWatch. Albeit patchily. The pilots had warned that there were likely to be bumpy spots enroute, but they must have avoided them as these were two of our smoothest flights yet. Singapore Air consistently rates as the top airline for travel and they really are an experienced and sophisticated bunch who know how to do things well. And tho' my personal favourite is still Korean Air, Singapore rates highly up in the top echelons.

We had our quickest transit ever through immigration and customs at Heathrow -- we virtually walked straight through any barriers out to collect our baggage, then headed directly for the Piccadilly line to take the underground to King's Cross station where we boarded the Azuma fast train to York. Again, this was an easy and pleasant trip at the end of which we collected the hire car we are using for the next five weeks, a Vauxhall Mokka, which is oddly similar in many respects to our Odyssey at home though minus the backing camera which Pete loves now, and it even has a really excellent in-car Sat Nav, which is a bonus, as in-car Sat Navs are notoriously bad. But this one is intuitive and easy to use. I came prepared with downloaded open source Garmin maps and offline Google maps set up, but these were not needed. Then, a long deep sleep in a quiet bed and breakfast in a village just outside York that evening set us on the right timeline for our Yorkshire adventure to begin the next day.

It is lovely to be back in Yorkshire. The moors, the dales, the wolds. We took hedgerow routes, our favourite, slowly savouring it all. The hedgerows are heavy now with beautifully formed rosehips, and beyond them fat buttery cattle roam the rolling hills of Jurassic limestone coated with lush green grass. We headed into the Howardian Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, named after the Howard family who have lived at Castle Howard hereabouts for centuries, and still do. We have been there before but may call in later this month and see if they remember us and are up for a cuppa. Wink.

Ampleforth Abbey was only a slight detour for us, so we made a pit stop at the Visitors Centre with its excellent three room historical display, and chatted half the morning away learning so much about the resident monks and the Abbey history that we were easily enticed back for a full day, another day, just to absorb it all. So, soon we will return. Ampleforth is the small village we were to have visited last year before we had to cancel when I had pneumonia so it was great to see it at last, and it is as we had expected, utterly charming with quaint pubs and wobbly stone cottages lining the street.

We took routes to the coast lined with hamlets and farmsteads. Every few minutes there were produce stalls aplenty on the verges with rickety shelves touting freshly laid eggs, organic farm vegetables, and home made jams, chutneys and pickles. It is a place lost in a time ago, and I love it. A real escape to the backroads of the country. It must be the season, too, for locals fairs and festivals. There are banners touting artisan food and craft markets, plant fairs, tractor engine rallies, and even a beer and gin festival. We seem to be in the right place at the right time for these so will try to visit as many as we can in the upcoming weeks.

Farmsteads make a precarious living, but here, many of them have determined to diversify by adding a farm shop and cafe to their enterprise: selling their produce onsite. These are almost as prevalent on these hills as the roadside stalls. We love farm shops and go out of our way to visit many, but we had no need to detour here. Small ones are everywhere. We lunched at one. The Whole Hog Farm Shop it was called, delightfully set up with small animal enclosures to appeal to families where goats, pigs, chickens and geese can all be fed and handled. Just delightful.

It sold farm fare, grown here or close by: carved, boned, pickled, sealed, jarred. Whatever you fancy it seems they can provide. We chose a Ploughman's for lunch with a home made pork pie and a hearty platter arrived with strips of roast and corned meats, savoury and sweet cheeses, pickled and caramelised onions, rustic fresh home made bread, a large pork pie, and lots of farm fresh salad vegetables all chunked up. We ate well, and took away a home made family sized steak and ale pie that just needed heating for supper.

Well fed, we drove the last stretch to Filey, our destination for these weeks, to our a lovely villa in a set of luxury apartments with a magnificent view of the North Sea from the living room. Here we met up with the owners who welcomed us with pots of hot tea and home made syrup and oat crunches along with Yorkshire Parkin as a welcome. Lovely.

So we hardly needed the steak and ale pie for dinner after they left us to our own devices, though I confess that we managed it all, along with mash and mushy peas to boot, before we all literally fell into soft beds, and sank into a long deep sleep only to be woken in the morning by the sound of seagulls. We have arrived.