Appreciating community spirit in the Yorkshire Dales village which is my happy place - Christa Ackroyd

It makes my soul sing. Not just because of the family connection but its beauty takes my breath away and I am lucky enough to have a cottage there.

I know the villagers and they have become friends. I buy presents from the glass blowers who are world beaters.

I get my logs from the log man up the road, my papers from the village stores and eat the best cake in the world from the cafe owners on the green as my waistline can attest to after each visit. I have travelled all over the world but nowhere restores my mind like Rosedale.

Before you start talking about villages being decimated by second home owners the cottage is my pension and it’s personal.

I rent it out to holiday makers who in turn keep the local pubs, shops and cafes busy in a village which boasts two discreet caravan parks and is thriving as a result. I make no apologies.

My little house was bought the same week my father died and I was lucky enough to spend time with my mum there each year taking her back to her roots and so it is very special to me.

This week, apart from hours up a ladder painting, I was able to invite friends of many years to enjoy it with me.

They travelled from near and far and we lit the fire, drank wine, laughed and gossiped and looked out onto one of the best views in Christendom, whether it be a foggy day, a rainy day or a day when the moors were bathed in sunshine.

We drove to the coast for the best fish and chips in the land, discovered amazing little tea rooms and art galleries in out of the way villages run by creative young people embracing country life while ensuring it moves on yet remains as it has always been, and visited the wonderful shops in Helmsley where I bought fents of fabric for cushions I will probably never make and made plans to do the same again next year.

We have eaten well this last two weeks, mostly around the kitchen table, on produce that was made on our doorstep.

It wasn’t cheap but then food, if it is produced organically and ethically, shouldn’t be. It is the lifeblood of farming in North Yorkshire and in turn it is the farmers who protect the countryside we were blown away by.

They plant and tend the hedgerows, mend the dry stone walls and make our stunning countryside what it is, an unchanged haven far removed from the busy lives most of us lead. So where we could, we shopped local.

One deli we visited three times because the food was so good, stocking up on homemade this, locally produced that, so ensuring our fridge for the fortnight was full of deliciousness.

Each visit to replenish was around £50 or more but that didn’t matter. We wanted to stay put, to just be, to enjoy a cold collation around the kitchen table putting the world to rights.

And it was perfect until our last visit when, with the counter crammed with pots of scrumptiousness, slices of perfection and more pate, cheese and crackers than we could possibly polish off, I was asked if I wanted a brown paper carrier bag.

Well I couldn’t possibly have balanced the aforementioned mountain of goodies in my arms, so I said yes please. I hadn’t been asked on previous visits.

Our shopping had just been packed beautifully in one of those old fashioned brown paper bags that add to the whole experience. Not this time. That will be ten pence, said the assistant.

I looked at the figure on the till, added it to all we had bought before and asked why? Plastic bags I understand. They are a menace not just to the ocean but they blight the countryside and are a danger to animals.

We saw more than a few caught in the hedgerows these past couple of weeks, so I am fully supportive of the charge on them which has led to a huge reduction in their use. But charging for a recyclable brown paper bag when you have just spent a small fortune?

That is unacceptable profiteering.

I of course got back to my car, having had no option but to purchase one and looked it up on the Government’s website. And yes, there is no charge. Or there shouldn’t be.

But then at Malton food festival I was brought down to earth with a bump. Not that I was charged for a paper bag.

The whole town, awash with visitors, was also awash with posters of missing mum Victoria Taylor, whose belongings were found on the banks of a rain swelled River Derwent. And once again I thought of the power of community.

Locals have been out searching, the pub has been offering free hot drinks and the whole town has come together. As they always do.

Nearer to my usual home in Halifax teams of young men spent a week or more drilling, digging and scraping away the undergrowth with their bare hands to rescue a little terrier named Rose who has fallen deep into a crevice.

They worked ceaselessly day and night, one only going home to be at the birth of his baby girl, before returning the next day. They never gave up.

The tiny bore hole they created was used to drip water and then morsels of food to the terrified little dog and rescuers travelled from the other side of the country to offer their help and equipment until the frightened little dog was safe in the arms of her owner.

Meanwhile in Leeds my beautiful Homeless Street Angels discovered that the building which they had daringly bought for hundreds of thousands of pounds to build a support centre for our guys on the streets was not as they had hoped for.

Broken shutters, dripping plumbing, failed alarms as well as the need for a kitchen and decoration was enough to make them weep. But they needn’t have worried. Within hours of their call for help a team of female decorators arrived armed with their own sandwiches.

A renowned local chef and his wife offered to fit the kitchen and provide cookery classes for the men and women the team support in the homes they have helped them find.

The shutters are being mended, the electrics sorted, the flooring relaid and tiling done all for nothing more than a cup of tea and gratitude and the dream to make a difference continues. And to think I was annoyed at a ten pence paper bag.

After a week filled with friendship and laughter what the hell?

Sometimes life and it’s annoying little niggles get in the way of the bigger picture, that there is always someone worse off than yourself and enough good people to pick you up when you fall, free of charge.

As they may say in a country I could no more live in than fly to the moon, let’s stop sweatin’ the small stuff. And carry a shopping bag in your car.