Lyepol 2021 River Ugg near Mortimer's Cross

The third trip of the summer was to the cottage at Lyepol, our second year visiting this isolated property which is miles from anywhere, has no electric and no phone signal. It really is a place on its own at the foot of a steep hill with the river Ugg running along the bottom of the large, sloped garden. The land either side of the cottage is also in the family and they have fishing rights for a mile and more in either direction.

We took the motorhome and spent three nights on board in plenty of comfort and nice and warm despite having Evie for the second night and then both Eve and Amelia for the third. That meant we got to watch a film at bedtime using the laptop before the battery ran out, High School Musical followed by Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. 

The local fields are full of wheat which is almost ready to be harvested and the children enjoyed walking there to get a mobile signal or to hide in the rows of the corn. The weather was less favourable than last year but the Wednesday was fine enough to encourage the children to get in and make use of the rope swim as well as the unicorn float.

This time the journey saw us remember just about everything we needed other than some headphones for Maria to use but also presented us with Alison's battery dying on her phone requiring a new one to be fitted on return to Dorset. The journey back took us on a zigzag tour of the route as Google Maps did its best to find us the quickest route. It was a busy day on the roads, all of them. It feels as if the roads are bursting at the moment and I wonder how long we can continue with the increasing numbers of vehicles riding roads which are in need of repair and lacking facilities en route such as regular toilets or laybys. It seems anything out of the public purse which serves everybody is still seen as too left wing in the sense that taxes are perceived as 'bad' and a 'necessary evil' which needs to be eradicated wherever possible. 

I'd rather have servies we can take pride in and help us experience daily life to its full rather than feel everything is over-priced and out of reach unless you are wealthy enough to ignore the individual costs.