#bloggersholiday with Sykes Cottages

Over the weekend, I had a weekend break with 7 other bloggers. We packed lots of booze and warm clothes into our cars and had booked a house with Sykes Cottages. We visited Cote Ghyll caravan park in Osmotherley, North Yorkshire.

This post might get long, so I do apologise if you find yourself scrolling for what feels like days. But it will be worth it – there are donkeys. Yes. Mother fucking donkeys. I LOVE DONKEYS.

The Cottage

The cottage was adorable. It had 4 bedrooms, each sleeping 2 people. There was a bathroom upstairs, as well as a shower room and toilet downstairs.

On the ground floor was a spacious kitchen and a table that could seat 8, this led into a large living room with a TV and DVD player, then a games room which had a pool table, a foosball table and another sofa that was also a sofa bed. It was clean and very cosy – I could very happily live there.

The only downside was the wifi. There was no phone reception and the wifi was slow and kept disconnecting. It worked better in some areas of the house than others, I think the signal might have been coming from the reception building further down the road, it would have been great if it was closer!

I’m sure I don’t need to paint the picture of the chaos 8 bloggers and a poor internet connection can trigger…

The adventures

My partners in crime were:

• Hayley
• Sammie
• Jess
• Danniella
• Kelly
• Simone
• Sharon

I picked Daniella up from Northallerton train station and we drove to the cottage.

We got lost several times, due to my attention span being NULL and completely missing a turn. It started to get dark and driving down narrow country roads in the middle of nowhere can be a little bit creepy. We finally managed to get there, right before I got to the point where I was ready to stop the car and just cry a bit.

Sammie made us the most amazing tapas for dinner, then we watched Frozen, drank and stayed up until 4am.

The next day, we had a wander into the village, Osmotherley. It was such a beautiful village, little cottages and country side. We went to one of the 3 pubs for food, I had a burger. Which was actually a bit disappointing, but it looks nice in the photos 😉

On the way back to the cottage, some of us decided to go for a wander before it got dark. We found a stream, waterfall and the reservoir. The views were amazing and I bet this place would be stunning in the spring and summer!

We then went back to the cottage, we were supposed to watch another movie but ended up chatting all night. We (well, me mostly because I’m a over-dramatic knob head) got terrified at one point when I was 150% sure I heard the door open and close. This caused a mini freakout and the brave members of the group (not me) went to check it out. It turned out nobody was there. The noise could have been from anywhere – there were no other houses around and no street lights, so it was a little creepy at times!

The best part was when I was outside getting some fresh air with Hayley and Sammie, we were talking and some animal made a noise, Sammie and I ran inside screaming. Help!

Some of us stayed up until 4am again messing around online. It was hilarious but I was a bit hungover when I woke up the next day!

The next day, we drove into Northallerton which was around 15 minutes away. It was their Christmas festival so the streets were so busy! There were donkeys there which were adorable. We did a bit of shopping, waved at Santa then headed back to Osmotherley for Sunday lunch.

We went to a cute pub for Sunday lunch, where I ordered a lamb roast. I love lamb and I have no idea why anyone would prefer another meat over it. I smothered it in mint sauce!

We then went for another drink, then braved the walk home in the dark. It was pitch black and we had to use the flash on our phones to see where we were going.

There was a man in a tent camping beside the road, we did consider the possibility of him coming to murder us in the night, but it all worked out okay in the end.

We spent the rest of the night having a few drinks, watching trash TV and chilling.

We had to be out by 10am, so got up early and left. Then it was the end of the holiday. Doom.

I had a really good time, it’s always refreshing to be around other bloggers as you can talk about blog related things and they actually know what you’re talking about! We didn’t do much adventuring, but I’m more than happy with a relaxing weekend away in the country side and spending the evenings in pyjamas and drinking booze!