There were four in the bed...

Well, there were two in the bed and there were two in bunks, but that isn't how the song goes!



Those of you that have been following the bunking up saga will have realised that we now have 2 bunks in. The last one went on the Wednesday before we went to BusFest.



This is the view with both bunks in.   For those who haven't followed this, Brian has a Dormobile conversion, and we have had 2 new covers from Jim at Dormobile (who is great) and we've refurbed the mechanisms and poles ourselves.  We are that awesome.







Now, as you can see, the bunks don't sit centrally, don't sit squarely, but do, apparently, fit perfectly.  These are, I promise, in the right places.



This is the mechanism for the passenger side, which has an extra hole in it.





Obviously, we did the child test.  The child liked it.  He found getting into it easy enough, by climbing up from the bed height, although more about that later.









This was the view on Saturday morning.  As you can see, even fully loaded with 10 and 12 yr olds, there is not a great deal of bulging and so on, because the canvases supported the the boys well.  The only real issue we had was the noise of sleeping bag on canvas, and the feeling of rocking whenever one of the boys twisted over.  There were times, Dear Reader, when I could have sworn we were on a ship at sea.









We had also taken the new awning, the Khyam 5000XC, otherwise known as "The Albert Hall".  It's bigger than the Albert Hall.  Ok, maybe it isn't, but it feels bigger.  It was ideal for the boys to be shoving their sleeping bags away in, and storing spare bits and pieces.  The Mark slept in it (although he forgot his airbed....)







The extra bonus for us though, was the fact that we did all the things that one should never, ever do with a new awning.



We turned up late.

In the almost dark.

It had rained hard on the way there.

It was due to rain again.

It was Malvern, and therefore every other peg hit at least one stone.

We had never put the awning up before.

Or opened the bag.

Or even checked everything was in the bag.



And yet, it went up really, really easily.  It did take 4 adults and 2 children to do it, but mainly because it was quicker with two mallets and with children holding onto poles whilst ropes were banged in.  But make sure you don't do what we did.  It was a lot of stress for tired people!



In the morning, the sun shone, and Brian and his extension looked beautiful.





Tragically, this is the only show picture I took, because I forgot the camera and only had my phone with me.  I know.  Hopeless.  Never mind.









The show itself was fine.  I preferred CamperJam to be fair, but then that's me.  There was a lot of traders to look at, but typically Malvern in the chaotic layout, which meant we missed sections. However, we did see the main people that we wanted to see, which were All Things Timber and Bromsgrove Auto Trimmers.  Oh yes.



It is all arranged.  The deposit is paid with ATT, and Brian's slot is booked for April/May, meaning he will have a brand-new interior for next season.  Importantly, essentially even, he will have a new bed.  5 inches of foam, 2 of memory foam, will beat the 2 inches of compressed horsehair that we have at the moment.  Hinges being in a different place will mean Jack can sleep without his feet hitting the top of the hinge.  The bed being lower will mean that I can get into it without a hernia.  However, this may have implications for the boys getting into their bunks, but we shall see......  We are awaiting samples from them as I write, one of which is being machined up especially for us.



We've had a chat with BAT, and they are expecting our phonecall when they come back from holiday so that we can arrange a visit up there to sort out the upholstery.  It could well be "Snodgers setup."  I kid you not.  This is what they called it.  Lovely approachable people though!



We also made contact with Noisekiller, and will be ordering from them soon so that we can insulate and noisekill Brian before we send him to ATT.



Sunday was also brightish, and fairish, and the awning was soon dry enough to put down, and squeeze, and fold, and refold, and unfold, and fold again, until it all went into the bag.









It is a massive awning to go into this tiny (in comparison) bag!

This was the van we were parked up with, lovely people.







This was the van we were parked opposite.  Should you ever see this hideously pink van, park a long, long way from it.  At 11 am, it has a fabulous sound system.  At 3 am, I didn't appreciate it so much.  And that's all I want to say about that. (It's not, but it's all I can say and stay a lady!)







The show itself was fine, and we've decided that we'll go again to this one.  The timing of it is terrible - it's booked in to be the first weekend back to school for the next 4 years I think!



The next trip will be to Back2Basics at Birdingbury.  The tickets aren't bought, because we only decided last week, so we'll see about the weather, but I hope we're going.  Brian is so comfortable, that short of a hurricane, we'll be there!

In which Brian is hit with the Chinese Curse.

There is an (allegedly) Chinese curse, which says "May you live in interesting times."  Well people, this weekend, we are truly living in those times.

This should have been a slightly dull blog post, in which we mentioned Brian having his brakes fixed, totally, and it being just a simple switch. (Both had failed, and so one has been done and the other will be done when the rear anti-rollbar goes in.)

He went to the garage.  Paul did it and the steering drag link that needed doing.  Brian went up.  Paul went under and worked his magic.  Brian came down.  Job done.

Maybe I would have thrown this into the same post, or waited and given it a post of its own, but this week we also changed the wiper arms.  I know.  Rock and roll, right?

Having written this blog post, I would have written another one tomorrow night about going to Vanjamboree in Lincoln, and how fab or not fab it was, and that would have been that.  Maybe I would have mentioned that we were a little bit excited because this week is New Roof Week.  Brian has to be in Romsey, near Southampton, on Wednesday night to start his roof on Thursday morning.

Instead.........  What is wrong with this picture?

Yes dear reader, what is wrong is that those are not my legs, which means that something was Very Wrong.

Yesterday J, in Brian, picked the boy and I up from school, and we drove 160 miles to go and collect the other boy in order to go to Vanjamboree.  We got there, J turned Brian off, as usual, loaded the Older Boy, got back into Brian and...... Nothing. Nada.  Zip.

Nothing.  No engine.  No dash lights.  No hazards.  No nothing! Absolutely bugger all! Brian had slipped into a coma.

We had driven up with the lights on, so our first thought was that the dynamo had gone at some point, and the battery was flat, or that the dynamo was fine but the battery was old and unable to take a charge any more.  We were not concerned.  Through my bank account we have breakdown cover.  We could get then to take us the 5 miles to J's parents, and then get a new battery in the morning.  If it wasn't the battery, then we could get the AA to take us home on Sunday.

But when the breakdown service (which is run by the AA) sent a local garage lad out, who wasn't really sure what he was doing, I had that sinking feeling.  And when he said he couldn't help us, that there was "something wrong with a wire somewhere" and that he "only gets 25 minutes a job" and that he was "ordering us a truck"  the sinking feeling intensified.

And when the AA man on the phone (a very polite lad called Daniel) said that we only got 1 journey and that they would take us the 5 miles, but then charge us £49 +£2.50 a mile to get home to Norfolk (160 miles!) we knew we had to go home.  At this point, we thought we were now thinking we would also have to make a phone call on Monday, to cancel the roof, which would mean we couldn't have it done until August, at least.

All in the garden was not rosy.

The boys were collected by J's parents, who also brought us sandwiches.  Daniel organised a truck - for 2150, a wait of 2 hours.  In the mean time however, he sent a proper AA man with a big yellow truck and everything.

These are his legs.


This Official Chap was amazing.  Utterly amazing.  Every rude thing I have ever thought or heard about the AA was obliterated by how professional, how knowledgeable, how thorough,how generally fabulous he was.  He checked Brian's electrics in a logical manner, talked us through everything that he did, and explained anything I asked about.  His name was Richard and if I could have kept a tiny clone of him in my glovebox instead of a Haynes manual, I would have. (Ok, that probably sounds a little stalkery, I don't mean it to be lol, but he was *that* great.)

However, at 2150, the Massive Truck turned up.  It was HUGE. It had AA all over it.  It had lights that flashed and some that didn't flash.  It had a driver who was very Midlands and said "Ah... rooight" a lot, but waited patiently whilst we were finishing up the discussions about what was wrong.

Amazing Official Richard didn't just leave it as "Something wrong with the electrics".  He found the exact place where the live stopped being live and isolated exactly what was wrong. He even got Brian to start again, but as it is pretty impossible to drive around with a jump pack coming from a T2 mid section, we still had to take the truck.  Basically, the starter motor power lead has bust somewhere inside.  This is not a problem, and had somewhere been open, we could have potentially fixed Brian except...... the post where the wire joins the starter motor was rusted solid.  Even after two applications of WD-40 and a good wirebrushing, there was nothing doing.  The whole starter motor was starting to turn instead of just the nut.

So Brian ended up here......



It's not right, is it?  However, even an unconscious Brian was cooler than any other car in the car park we were in!  But it was also 2215 by now, and we had a long journey ahead of us.  However, we had hope that Brian would be in Romsey, near Southampton, on Wednesday night to start his roof on Thursday morning.



We had to swap trucks and drivers at Peterborough services.  "Ahhhh roooight" was out of tachograph time, and I wish I knew his name because he was so gentle with Brian, and checked him all over once he was up on the ramp, double checked the straps, all that kind of thing.

The second truck driver was a local services chap, who was cheerful, chatty, helpful, discussed engines and so on with us for the last hour back to home.  Brian was gently popped on the drive at 2am.

By 8 am we were at EuroCarParts in Lynn.  The chap there was very helpful, tracked down what we needed and although they didn't have it there, they did have it in Peterborough, so off we trogged to Peterborough armed with their postcode, their phone number, in fact everything we could have needed from EuroCarParts Lynn.

I don't want to talk about EuroCarParts Peterborough, because my mother brought me up that if I can't say anything nice, then I shouldn't say anything at all.

Let's leave it as, well, at least we have a starter motor.


They had no leads suitable, so we went to GSF down the road, and they were brilliantly helpful, in the way that made us wish we'd gone there first.  Even though they didn't have the leads, they knew a place that sold it off the roll, and gave us directions.  We then didn't need the directions because the chap behind us said he was just off to there and we could follow him!  Sorted!

Millfield Auto parts had the lead on a roll, as much as you wanted, and all the connectors, and I would loved to have had a proper look around the place, but we had to get back to phone The Mark, who, as we know from a previous post, is our secret weapon when Brian slips into a coma, as he has at the moment.  There is no way we could get Brian in to Paul The Garage Man before Brian has to be in Romsey on Wednesday night to start his roof on Thursday morning. (Ok, I'm obsessing slightly about the roof.  I know.)












So that's where we are now.  On the sofa, waiting for The Mark to arrive, waiting to see what happens next.  I'll update this when I know.

As there are so many companies in this post, I feel a round-up is in order!

AA - loved the official Richard, loved the trucking people, will not be saying it's ok to send me a local chap again as Brian is too specialist.  I'm sure the chap would be great with the every day stuff! But I will be emailing them about Official Richard.
EuroCarParts - Lynn are great, superb customer service, excellent attitude!  Peterborough had the part.  And that's all I want to say about them.
GSF Peterborough - What lovely people!  We'll be going there again for certain, and using their website more often.
Millfields Autos Peterborough - lots of obscure bits which I want to spend time going around and helpful service.


We've just had the phone call to say The Mark is on his way.  After all, as I may or may not have mentioned, Brian has to be in Romsey, near Southampton, on Wednesday night to start his roof on Thursday morning, and a roof that lifts will enable us to live in many more interesting times!



Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone so don't mock the spelling and I'll be back later to sort the layout!