For my day out in October, I was trying to think how I could tie it in to Halloween. I have to be a bit careful about this, because I have a terror of mannequins, and my absolute nightmare would be to go to a museum and find that they've gone wild on the waxworks. In the end, I hit on the idea of Fountains Abbey. It's an interesting place on its own, being the ruins of a monastery that good old Henry VIII decided to do away with on his rampage through Britain. The grounds also contain an interesting hall, an old mill, and some lovely walks to see some temples and statues round lakes and water features. In terms of Halloween connections, it is where Damien Thorn finally gets his comeuppance at the end of The Omen 3. Sam Neill's version of the anti-Christ is last seen stabbed to death at the Chapel of the Nine Altars in the ruins of the abbey. As someone who loves The Omen series, and will argue the case for the much maligned third part, this was right up my street.  As I dis...

Sometimes, you do things in life that make you wonder what on earth possessed you to do such a ridiculous thing. For me, September's trip was the perfect example of one of those moments. This month, I went to Blackpool. Now, I hasten to add that visiting Blackpool isn't in and of itself a particularly ridiculous thing to do. Although, wearing shorts on the front in a wet and windy week in September definitely could be described as such, and I learned a valuable lesson. No, what was rather wild was my absolute conviction that I was going to ride The Big One, come hell or high water. Riding a rollercoaster was another thing that I had on my list of 40 things that I want to try and achieve before I hit 40. No little piddly kid-friendly coaster was going to do it though. I decided that if I was going to ride a rollercoaster, it should be one that was, at one time, the tallest rollercoaster in the world. Someone should have had a word with me.  I could not tell you the last time I w...

  When choosing days out, sometimes the destinations can sound fairly morbid. However, August was the month when I decided to tick another item off my list of 40 things I would like to achieve before I'm 40. I've always been interested in the village of Eyam in Derbyshire, sometimes known as The Plague Village. Now, trying to explain to people that you've had a longstanding goal to visit a village famous for a good chunk of the population being wiped out by plague can be something of a tricky sell. Nevertheless, their story is a fascinating one. In 1665, the local tailor ordered some cloth from London, inadvertently bringing the plague into the village. Once it started to spread, and it became clear that it would keep spreading, the village decided to put themselves into a self-imposed quarantine. In doing so, they condemned themselves to suffer through a large portion of their population dying and becoming ill. However, in doing this, they also stopped the spread of the di...

We'd been having a heatwave. A horrendous, 30 degree plus even late into the night level of heatwave. Therefore, for my July day out, I wanted to choose somewhere with indoor options, as well as maybe some shady woods to walk round. Castle Howard had been on my "maybe I should visit" list for ages. I have been before, but I would be willing to bet that it's been the better part of 15 years since I was here, and there were parts of it that I couldn't remember, or wasn't sure if I'd muddled up with other stately homes. It was time to refresh myself. Even if, when I was getting ready on the morning of my trip, I clocked that the temperatures had dropped and the skies were clouded over! Typical! The entry way to Castle Howard is through a courtyard stable block that had some really nice shops and a cafe. You could go sit in this part, or browse the farm shop without going through to the ticketed areas, so it would be really nice if you lived locally to just po...

OK, I have to be honest here. This one wasn't strictly speaking a dip into the day out fund. Every June, I go to West End Live in Trafalgar Square in London, as it always sits around my birthday. This year, the Saturday happened to be my actual birthday, so of course I was doubly excited. For my birthday present, my Mum always sends me some money to book my hotel, train, theatre tickets, and whatever else I might be able to eek out of it when you consider London prices in summer! I did use the money on the usual travel expenses, but I also decided to treat myself to something that I had wanted to do for a long time. I was going to walk over The O2. First things first. The main reason for me travelling to London in the first place was for West End Live. It's a real highlight of my year, and I've been going since 2017 and the days when you could rock up an hour before starting time and get yourself a nice spot in Trafalgar Square to see it all from. Those days are, for better...

May's trip out was another case of being a tourist somewhere local. I have lived maybe 40 minutes from York all my life. Have I ever been inside the Minster before? No. It's one of those things that, when you live close to somewhere, you seem to get a bit non-plussed about some of the amazing historical sites and attractions that it holds. I couldn't even begin to explain to you how many times I have walked past York Minster, so it seemed about time that I stepped foot over the threshold.   When I'm visiting York, the park and rides are my best friend. Parking charges are absolutely extortionate. They're maybe not so bad if you're in a group, and they're split a few ways. However, as a solo explorer, the bus fare was considerably more reasonable. Plus, it saves the bother of driving round York, which isn't too bad to be fair, but zoning out on the bus with your air pods in is definitely more relaxing.  When I got to the Minster, there were already quite ...

It was at this point that I began to feel that I might have to stop spending over £100 every time I fancied a jolly if I was going to stretch that £710 over the entire year. Maybe another low cost/free day might be on the cards, especially as the weather had turned much nicer and outdoorsy day out ideas were starting to present themselves. I'm a Yorkshire girl, so Scarborough is a place that immediately jumps to mind when I think of sunny day trips, and I had some new walking boots that I needed an excuse to break out. Therefore, a coastal walk it was to be! For those of us that had our Sunday night routines set in stone by the theme tunes to Heartbeat, Where the Heart Is, or The Royal, you will appreciate the fact that I chose to park at the end of Holbeck Road in Scarborough, almost exactly where the entrance to The Royal's reception was. I text my mum to tell her that I'd left my car in the hands of Ken and Alan at The Royal, lathered on some sun cream, and off I went. I...