A van full of stuff

It has been a very busy weekend which Vikki has detailed on her blog http://www.abusymum.blogspot.com/.  For my part we have nearly squeezed everything in the van.

This afternoon I quickly calculated that we have 8 cubic metres of "stuff".  Probably a bit less than that, but close!

Tomorrow we squeeze a few more things in and then we set off :)

Big Blue Adventure Van

We now have a working split charge system in the van. Whilst measuring spaces to put a new leisure battery I found an old one! Totally dry, but all the wiring was there. Tony looked at it and found a blown 150A-32V fuse between the relay and leisure battery.  That would take a massive amount of energy to blow, it would be interesting knowing what would do it.  This may have been the cause for our starter battery losing so much charge that it could not start on cold mornings as the Battery-Guard system is now working properly and the van starts first time.

We also have new tyres now, arranged though http://www.tyrefitdirect.co.uk/. Big all-terrain tyres to help stop us getting stuck.  K really enjoyed taking photos and video of Ian fitting the tyres.

We will lose some comfort and gain some road noise but Tony is fitting some speakers in the middle for the kids so they can still complain about grown-up radio :)

V has thought of some more changes to the back of the van.  Lucky me!

We have also learnt about keeping spare Pyjamas and bedding close to hand as K was sick in the night and I had to go out to the garage and retrieve a drawer full of spares.  Oops!

It also seems that kiln dried hardwood logs will suck up quite a bit of moisture if left in a cool damp place for a month or two.  Having said that, our wood stove can heat the tent up pretty damn quickly with good wood!

Speaking of which, I should go and split some wood that we never got around to carving and buy some more so we can get the tent warmed through again so we can try camping tonight, or tomorrow.

Living with the In-Laws

Living with the in-laws

So far, so good. We all seem to be getting on well. Even though grandma thinks K should be in school she is being really helpful, even taking part in the home education, or education otherwise, as she has taken her to the Leeds Art Gallery and is hoping to take her to Manchester to see the Tutankhamen exhibit.

K didn't really think much of the paintings but enjoyed the sculptures. I foresee many trips to art galleries and museums in the next six months!

Having put the tent up, but still sleeping in the house, we can try and get layout right. We have slightly adjusted the chimney and have decided to shorten the guy ropes. After much debate about building a camp kitchen a trip to Ikea revealed some lightweight office drawers that do nearly everything we want and need only slight modification.

Ikea may be a huge multi-national, but they do some things right ;)

As this post has taken almost a week to write the grandparents have flown to Egypt now.  I think the girls will really miss them as they have had so much fun.  Hopefully we will be busy and having fun with the people we meet and the time will fly by for the girls.

The Beginning

The big adventure has begun.

We have a tenant in the house that we own and have moved out of the house that we were renting.

V's parents looked after the children whilst we filled the van three times and cleaned the house. I posted the keys through the letting agents door at 20.30. A lot later than I had thought!  Even having moved almost everything into storage there was so much to pack on the last day.  The children had both had a snotty cold and cough for the last week, but I should have been able to do more.

Having said that, I did get Tony to service the van and asked him to do the split charger and put speakers in for the back seats.  I have also made my mind up about the all terain tyres we are having on the van. We definitely will need a small trailer as well. We don't travel light. And why should we? This is supposed to be enjoyable, not a test. I decided that this afternoon!

There is still an awful lot of things to sort out.

Once the tent is up we can start work on getting the layout and the tent kitchen made. It's OK, three weeks is lots of time!!