Left Leeds for Staithes at around lunchtime and stopped at Helmsley on the way for a drink and to pick up supplies (nice bread, petrol and wood). The last time we were in Helmsley (on the way back from a weekend in a country hotel near Scarborough) John lost £50 to a cash machine: we thought it was probably a little too late to follow it up this visit though…

Drove over the moors (well, not literally, we used the road) and passed the scary, huge RAF survelliance building up there, noting the big “Official Secrets Act” notice at the entrance. Oooh.

As per the instructions, we had to pick up the keys from the housekeeper at a house in an estate on the edge of Staithes but they weren’t in, so we drove on to find out where we should be going instead. We drove towards the Potash chimneys past Staithes village and were amused to see a sign for a “Dark Matter” research laboratory. It just seemed so out of place. Like it should be in Futurama or something instead.

Anyway, we drove back to the housekeeper’s house and got the keys from her husband (a lovely, green Geordie character) and then headed to the cottage. It is in the Cowbar side of the village so you have to go down a little bizarre road that feels like you’re going into a private farm yard, but lo, at the end of it the road opens out again and leads down into the Cowbar part of town.

After a small group of houses at the top of the hill, there are about ten cottages in Cowbar, most of which looked to be holiday cottages and deserted.

I guess our cottage, Northside, hadn’t been lived in for a couple of weeks - it was rather cold on arrival and for most of the evening, even with the fire going (once the storage heater stored up warmth overnight and the underfloor heating kicked in the next day, it was warm and cosy for the rest of the trip though, and we had an oil radiator in the bedroom to keep that warm when we needed it). The cottage is quite small but plenty big enough for us - the living room/kitchen took up the ground floor but had a lovely big sofa and dining table and didn’t look cramped. The whole design aesthetic seemed to be one of shabby chic and it suited the cottage - combining a Smeg fridge, modern sofa and beautiful kitchen area with rough walls, exposed (but not fancied-up) beams and an old-fashioned/destressed dining table. I liked it all a lot. The stairs to the first floor (at the back of the ground floor room) and the kitchen area shelving were made out of the loveliest, smoothest wood: I sat there and stroked it for a good while one night. Upstairs, there’s a bedroom with a double bed and bunk beds in it and a bathroom with a very long (but strangely) narrow roll-top bath and what I’ve called a “strange toilet” in my notes, although I can’t remember what I meant by that, I think it had an odd flush or something. Anyway, upstairs again from that, in the attic, was the master bedroom and where we decided to sleep even though we thought we would constantly bang our heads on the beam on the way up (even short-me).

So, anyway, on the first night, we aquaintated ourselves with the cottage and got a fire going with the wood from we picked up in Helmsley. We relaxed for a bit then had soup, bread and cheese for tea, then tea and cake for dessert. After that, we read and drew for the whole evening and with such static pursuits, I was glad we brought the throw blanket from home because it was pretty chilly and drafty away from the fire (drafts came down from upstairs, as usually happens with open fires). We went to bed about midnight.