Things starting to happen

This blog has been conceived for a few days but I've just been too busy to actually get round to writing the thing.

I need one of these for Julian at the school

I sent a chase email to the architect last week detailing exactly what I had been promised in terms of dates for things (like electrical connection, PuP etc) and I had quite a good email back. First of all he has said that the electric will be connected next week. Woo. He is also confident of the approval and says that I should be able to confidently start work about April, which is pretty much bang on the money when I wanted to; it will give me time to settle in, get the workmen together (with Bekir's help), order the materials and also just fence and prepare the property for the process of renovating it.

He also said that the plans which I sketched should be enough; I'm not sure what he means by this but I'll find out when I get there as I'm determined to arrange a face to face meeting with Lubo in the first week of arriving.

Julian has a clean bill of health

In other news Julian passed his MOT and I will be picking him up from the garage tomorrow. I'm to Blackpool again this weekend to collect him and take advantage of the fact that I have this extra weekend to give him a good clean inside. I also plan on (finally) doing the last bits to Sassy's travel hutch and also I'm going to velcro the collection vessel under the leaky hole in the roof.

The last bits have been ordered (apart from the snow chains for Julian; I am finding it really difficult to find any which will fit. This is a concern) and include chargers for the walky talkies, an in ear piece for my dad for the same (yes, I DO listen to you father :D) and a load more of those window mounted claw grip things to hold the walk talkies and other things easily to hand.

Some of the little plastic cable tidies which I glued into Thomas have broken so I'll need to fix these and I also have not yet done my cable tidying in Julian so this will have to be done.

My final plan for the weekend is to arrange the Laycorn boxes. I have had some time to think about this now and I am going to put camping gear (including tent, sleeping bags, air beds, pump, cooker etc) in the bottom two boxes and then arrange the emergency gear in the top two. I have those big chunks of foam which I am going to cut to shape and cut shapes out of so things stay and don't rattle.

Mmm Breakfast cooked in Julian

I am also writing my list of meals and what to buy; I'll enthrall you all with that probably after the weekend.

Two weeks today is my last day in the office and my diary is now completely and totally full. I'm looking forward to seeing as many of you as can make it to my leaving do on March 7th and I am REALLY looking forward to getting on the road.

Here goes.... last two weeks!