I have been home for a week and I have reprehensibly left you all in the wilds of Northumberland. So, for the one of you who is wondering what happened next, here goes.

We spent several days grappling with the lack of internet, during which time we managed to get the car fixed. Undeterred, we returned to Craster, to find it marginally less busy than on our previous visit.

Next, a glorious, sunny day during which we ventured back to the Keilder Forest. On the map, the home of one of my probable ancestors looked to be up yet another non-road. Based on previous experience and mindful that the car was newly fixed, I debated whether or not we should boldly go. My companion was undaunted, so off we set and we were rewarded with a proper road and spectacular countryside. My ancestors certainly knew how to pick the best spots. Talking of maps, these trips always remind me how much I enjoy following routes on OS maps. This is absolutely not the same as navigating, though I have been doing that too, as some of the places on our itinerary are too small to be recognised by the sat-nav.

We then returned to my ‘one-place’ to photograph the eighty or so gravestones. Fortunately, these had already been transcribed by the local family history society, so it was just a case of taking the pictures.

Back at the van, we found that there was still no internet, meaning no work could be done, so we went for a walk round the nearby nature reserve. We’ve been to this caravan site several times before but as we habitually approach it from one direction, we had only just discovered this spot a few hundred yards beyond the site entrance. This meant that I could accomplish my Race for Life kilometreage (surely there should be a metric equivalent of mileage). It wasn’t very ‘racy’ but it was done and we got to see a huge flock of greylag geese as a bonus.

Our final day saw us embrace more hunting for ancestral houses. Against my better judgement my companion suggested that we embarked on a journey up a long and bumpy private drive as ‘we are almost there now’. These are occasions when I side down in the footwell and keep everything crossed that the owners are out. No such luck. A 4 x 4 approached from the opposite direction. We put on our best ‘we are stupid tourists’ expressions and were set to blame a faulty sat-nav. This is preferrable to admitting why we are actually there, as this often involves me in producing complete house histories gratis in exchange for a quick photo op. All is well this time as the 4 x 4 owner seemed totally disinterested in why we were up her drive in an area where households are currently not allowed to mix. There have been no follow ups to our adventures, so it seems that our covert photography has not led to us being reported to the local Farm Watch after all. Finally, internet was restored and I began to tackle the 210 emails that had arrived during the outage.

Then home. I was glad we went. It would have been all too easy just to stay at home but it was probably wise to escape briefly. It wasn’t as relaxing as usual and not ideal to be in a COVID hotspot but this was booked pre-COVID. Now I would be quite content to hibernate safely within my own four walls and garden until spring.