Next steps on Sassy's Hutch

This is my 100th blog post!

Wow

And it is 100 days til I leave. Today. As I post this blog.

Strange how those two numbers are trending together like that..

Anyway, sorry for the lack of blog yesterday. I went home in the evening and did do some stuff for the hutch but I just used a bit of wood I already owned and couldn't face the drive  to B and Q to get the flat joints, catches, hinges and thicker wood to do the shelf.

Makeshift saw-horse

So last night I put the back board on behind which I will stuff loads of insulation before nailing the access panel closed. I have already taken my saw-horses over to the storage unit (which was stupid) so last night I put the board across between my dining chairs as I was only doing a small amount of cutting.

I got the old jigsaw out for this and this was much easier than with the manual one on the first night; I should have got it out for then but never mind.

Backboard fitted

Within very short order I had the board fitted and screwed in to the frame I had built the night before. This progress, while small, helped me to feel not too lazy as I went and sat on my backside for the rest of the evening.

And so to this Thanksgiving day (yesterday as you read this). I got home and didn't make the same mistake twice, very quickly was back out in Julian driving to B and Q to pick up the aforementioned items and while there I saw some really nice saw horses and picked them up too. As per I hadn't got a trolley and so I was juggling towards the checkout. I never learn.

Preparing to cut the shelf

I set the saw horses up just outside Julian and dragged the extension cable, and all my kit, inside to the cabin so I had everything I needed to hand. Using the jigsaw made this task a thousand times easier than it would have been. It was a little noisy, and I didn't half get some strange looks from passers-by (including one kid who came and had a chat with me for a few minutes, telling me just how cool he thought Julian was).

The ramp, measured and marked out

Having cut the correct sized shelf I then wanted to cut out the ramp. My concept was to have it so this was hinged and able to be secured in a "closed" position so, once I had travelled, this hutch could be easily converted into a cupboard.

Hole drilled to start cutting out the ramp

The first challenge was how to start cutting it out. I got a large drill bit and chose one corner and went for it, careful to make it drill through inside the shape for the shelf. I then took the jigsaw and went around the shape, having a bit of fun trying to turn each corner as the board was a little thick to do this without shaving back and forth and curving the corners.

Ramp cut out

As someone who has never really excelled at this kind of thing I am so proud of myself for designing this and then being capable of making it to design with careful measuring and the use of the correct tools.

Catch and hinge

Anyway, back to the task; I now wanted to secure the ramp with a hinge at one end, and a catch at the other. I fitted the catch first and the screws were just the correct length however when I came to do the hinge I found the screws were about 5mm too long and went through the other side. To ensure Sassy doesn't get caught on these sharp protuberances I cut a couple of blocks and screwed through into them.

Shelf with counter-sunk screw holes, fitted

So the only thing left today was to fit this shelf onto the framework and again I was careful here, drilling guideholes for the screws and then counter-sinking these to ensure the screw could be flush with the floor.

This is solid as a rock and looks great; I'm really pleased. The only mistake I've made is the shelf is too high above the base for the length of the ramp which means the ramp is too steep. I will need to come up with a solution for this.

I may not do any more to this tomorrow evening but Saturday I am going to put the doors on. These will be two separate doors, the bottom one solid and the top one with chicken wire.

Starting Sassy's Hutch

The bulk of this blog is going to be about my currently-under-way attempt to build the travel hutch for Sassy inside of Julian.

Electricity from the mains

First of all a little update on the electricity saga. It turns out that the problem I am experiencing is down to the hookup cable and when I tried with the three point plug into an extension outside my house last night I managed to get the power working.

This is a really good thing but why the hell the camper van dude didn't use my equipment I do not know; he hasn't impressed me at all and I'm still in dispute with him about the amount he is trying to charge me.

Battery compartment now

Anyway, the battery compartment is a little fuller than it was with the inverter and many more cables and wires in there. Everything seems to work apart from the air conditioning which is tripping the circuit breaker whenever I plug it in (let alone turn it on) which isn't a good sign. Hmmmm. I know this was working when I bought him so will have to get this looked at I think; feels a bit of a shame to have the box, and it not work.

Anyway, that is my update and now for the Sassy Travel Hutch saga.

The space for Sassy

The first job was to measure up and sweep out as the measurements my business partner took made no sense at all.

Lots of dirt

The amount of crap in the bottom of that gap was incredible; there was even a stone in there and so I got the dustpan and brush and swept it all out to make it clean ready for my work starting. All of this I did yesterday evening, after finding out the electricity was working.

Once I had a clean space I took the tape measure and measured all the dimensions which I thought relevant. This was a little more complicated than I thought it would be as the space was not completely regular; there were a few little bits and sticky out places which I had to be aware of. I also measured the distance of the capped off gas pipe as I will be building a box around it.

The sketch I drew of the dimensions

Once back inside I was able to take these dimensions and come up with an idea for how to build a frame which would give Sassy a nice area for her to sit, and also a dark area underneath.

Frame idea

As you would expect these dimensions were changed as I actually started with the woodworking. I decided to lift the shelf up to about half way and also bring a frame forwards towards the front so the envisaged ramp could be easily mounted to a secure ledge.

Rough idea of blocked out hutch

All this was achieved last night and today, after work, I popped over in Julian to B and Q and bought a pack of 2 x 1 and some right angle joints and set to.

The first cut....

First of all I measured the left and right  horizontal batons and cut these; my saw was a bit blunt and i was not using a secure base to rest the wood on while cutting and this made things MUCH harder. My reason was that it had started raining and I didn't want to be outside with my saw horses and electric saw so just made do. In the end the cuts were alright, barring a few slight mistakes.

The left horizontal and left upright

Once I had the horizontals I wedged them into the gap and then worked out exactly how high I wanted them. I cut these independently, with separate measures, using a builders level to try and make sure the whole platform would be as near to flat as possible.

The left hand frame in

The left hand frame was the first to do as this was easiest for me to get to, being right handed.

Fixings

I fixed the upright with two right angle joints and then, towards the other end, put another underneath the horizontal to act as a support. I used this method on the other side too, thought it was a bit tougher with my left hand operating the power driver.

Both side supports fitted

Much swearing, and me finding out that the space was big enough to fit my hole body in, and I had this done; it wasn't actually that much hassle really and the fact I was measuring many times really helped I think; each length of wood was perfect.

Next I was fitting horizontal cross pieces and this was both easy and difficult. The rear one I fitted very easily with fixings on the near side....

Fixing the rear horizontal cross piece

... however the front one was a pita as I had to try and screw through towards me. Not easy.

How I have left it

In the end the last screw threaded itself and I am going to have to work out how to remove it and maybe screw that in with a manual driver.

For tomorrow I need to put one more cross piece in, but the position of that will be decided by the depth of the ramp. I will also be buying the wood for the panels to box it all off and use as the floor. I will not be able to fix this all, however, as I want to put the insulation behind it the rear wall and most of that will not be accessible. I should be able to do the bottom part though as I can fill the insulation from the access panel (which I will then nail shut).

So there you are; I did wood work.

Sassy Squidger

I hope Sassy approves.

Taking Julian to Keswick

As promised yesterday here are a load of pictures from my weekend trip in Julian up to Keswick. The purpose of this trip was many-fold; I was meeting a couple of friends for some beers, taking Julian on a longish road trip to work out any problems and finally checking out the recent work which had been done to fix the hookup and internal electrics.

In all of these things I was successful, and the reason for the short post yesterday is testament to how successful the beers were on Saturday night.

I left work Friday and legged it to Blackpool to collect Julian; I have taken this opportunity to get Thomas into the garage to have the slight overheating issue looked at and also get his cam belts checked. I also got to try out the new shutter on the unit and was frustrated in this by the fact that the manual opening thing didn't work, and the fitters had left no keys so my clever thought "I'll use the new inverter in Julian to provide power for the shutter" was foiled. Hopefully the landlord can get this sorted for Friday so I can get the doors open and park Julian inside from now on.

Foam insulation in the fridge hole

After this hectic rush I got on the road in Julian and made my way up the M6 at a steady 55mph. I had blocked the ex-fridge-hole up with some foam padding however I don't think I did a good enough job as I was really rather cold, even with the heater going full. I had also mistakenly moved a mirror a little out of line which meant the my visibility to my right was quite limited; very exciting when trying to overtake an even slower moving vehicle than yourself when you aren't totally sure of your blind spot.

The moon on Friday night

About 9pm or so I arrived at the camp site and was shown to my pitch. It was an amazingly clear night with gorgeous stars and I immediately regretted not bringing my tripod with me. I did manage to take this picture of the moon which hasn't come out too bad - my shaking hands managed to hold steady for the 4-6 seconds of exposure this shot required (by leaning them on the spare wheel behind Julian).

My multi-sleeping bag nest

The ground was fristy-frosty and the air was not much better; apparently it was about -3 degrees at the time I arrived. Fortunately I had made a nest inside Julian which consisted of a doubled up thick rug underneath, a cocoon style sleeping bag for me to get into, a double duvet over the top and then three extra sleeping bags on top of THAT. Suffice to say I was quite lovely and warm throughout the night and even when I had to get up in the night to use the facilities the beauty of the stars distracted me from frost bite.

One of the first things which I did upon arrival was hookup to the nearest electricity point and test out the work which had been done on Julian. The inverter appeared to be working fine; it made a noise and the four way plugged into it came to life and allowed my walky talky charger to work; win. The leisure battery was a little low when I parked which makes me a touch concerned that it is not being charged by the running engine. For charging said battery while on hookup power I have a standard plug in charger and this seemed to be working, as the battery charge went up through the evening.

This is where the good news stops, however. I was unable to get any charge from the four way running off the hookup and then, with some trouble shooting changes, I spotted the following unusual behaviour:

• When the leisure battery charger is plugged in to the new single socket the red light on the consumer unit is steady however the red light on the four way goes off and I can get no power out of the four way
• When I unplug the leisure battery charger from the new single socket the red light on the consumer unit is steady and the red light on the four way comes on solidly
• When I plug anything else in to either the new single socket, or the four way, the red light on the four way started flashing on for half a second every couple of seconds. When this light switched off, the red light on the consumer unit pulsed slightly stronger for a brief moment

Unfortunately when I explained this behaviour to my camper van dude his replies were less than helpful and I am still unsure why this is occurring; I have plans to meet him on Friday to go through this. Anyway, enough of that.. onwards with the weekend.

Nice brew

The second thing I did, after all this fannying around, was to put the kettle on. Ahhhh first cuppa of the trip.

Frosty ground and overcast skies

I woke up comfortable and warm and to a frosty ground with overcast skies. This was a shame after the amazing clearness of the night but probably helped prevent the temperature dropping too far.

The camp site I was in (Keswick Camping and Caravanning Club Site) is situated right on the lake edge of Derwentwater. My first task of the day was to wonder down through the crisp morning air and enjoy the views. Here are some of the pictures I took:

Mountains reflected in Derwentwater

A wading bird

Canada geese and camper vans

Snow on the ridge

Keswick is one of my favourite places and the reason for this is obvious.

After this very pleasant stroll I returned to Julian and found him looking very retro and awesome indeed parked up amongst all the boring shiny new campervans which all look the same.

Julian all hooked up

It was time then for a brew to start my day off before I walked into Keswick for breakfast and a wander through the market.

Kettle boiling / cup steaming

It is a pleasure to sit in Julian on the sofa, feet up across the divide and drinking a brew while reading and glancing out of the window at the world passing by. I do feel very at home in him.

After I finished the brew I decided that a short walk was in order and headed into Keswick centre. It was still early and the market stalls were being set up. Last year when I was here I spotted a picture of a robin which I really liked however they had sold out of the size I wanted; this year I managed to go to the same stall and they had one in the right size. I am very pleased with this.

Keswick clock tower

Keswick has had some christmas decorations put up and I particularly enjoyed this one.

My favourite seat

About 11 I was getting really hungry and so headed to my favourite cafe in Keswick, The Wild Strawberry. First off I had a brew and sat reading and then, when it became clear I was eating alone today I had the breakfast which you can see in the blog post from yesterday.

Bring me more of the one on the right!

The good thing with eating somewhere you are known is they give you extra sausages and then, post a call from the owner, change the size of the tea pot from normal single person drinking alone size to the correct size for me.

My friends arrived just after I ate and we sat sharing a cuppa for a while before going our separate ways and agreeing to meet up later in the day.

I had spotted some stalls on the market earlier that interested me for breakfast; one selling fresh bread, another with cheese and a third which had pickles and other bottled goodness. Before setting off back to Julian I paid each of these a visit, of which more in a minute.

Friendly little robin

I had bought some window cleaning stuff and decided to sort out the dirty windows and wing mirrors so while I was wiping these with a rag I noticed a little robin redbreast hopping around. I do love robins and am always happy when one of these friendly little creatures is around. I was very surprised, however, to step inside Julian after my cleaning and see him sitting on my bed.

Can I leave now?

He did not seem in the slightest worried and hopped and fluttered around the van for a bit, checking it all out. I managed to grab my camera while he was doing this to get these photographs but kept my distance so as to not scare him.

Outside now, thanks for having me

After a minute or so I stood to one side and he flew calmly past me and out of the door, then sat outside looking back in at me.

Keswick sourced lunch

After this excitement I got together the provisions I had bought and made a very tasty cheese and pickle butty which I munched along with another brew.

This is where my pictures of the weekend dry up slightly as I headed to the pub with my book. I had a very interesting time, sat on my own with my book and an excellent pint of Snecklifter or three. At one point I was joined by 10 very friendly lads who were out on a lakes pub crawl (all locals) and then, later in the day, my friends joined me, some of them staying til the end and a couple only for a short while as they had other things to be getting on with.

Taken when drunk at the end of the night

I headed home to Julian about 11.30pm and this second night had to kick the nest off me and open a window as I ended up being lovely and warm. I woke too early and couldn't get back to sleep so read for several hours before dragging myself out of bed, via a brew, back to the Strawberry for another excellent breakfast and goodbyes to my friends.

The drive from Keswick to Manchester was really easy and I found that the cruise control is working in Julian again, and the radio works too so I was coasting along singing to my country and western and happy as larry. One idea I had was to drape the double duvet down behind the drivers cab to keep the cold from the hole in the wall out and this worked a treat; I was very comfortable and warm all the way home.

So now Julian is parked outside my house, I will be doing some more testing of the electrics this week, and hopefully building a hutch for Sassy in the gap from the fridge.

What a long update; thanks for reading.

Quick blog about the test trip

I was so tired last night I couldn't face turning the laptop on so this morning I am just going to do a really quick blog post, and will do the proper report for tomorrow.

I had a great weekend; very relaxing and quiet in parts, and crazy in other parts. Julian was comfortable and even if it was really really cold the first night my next kept me warm. The second night it was so warm inside that I opened a window by my head for fresh air, and was only in one sleeping bag.

Amazing breakfast with extra Sossidge

I didn't get to cook anything (other than a couple of brews) as I was meeting people and out in town for breakfast (amazing as always from The Wild Strawberry) both mornings but I did make myself a cheese and pickle butty on Saturday lunch time.

The electrical work that I had done was not entirely completed so I am again having a bit of a discussion with the camper van dude; the inverter appears to work right but the wiring he has done to take the hookup power to plugs around the van does not seem well done at all.

RAAAAMMMMBBBOOOOOO!!!!

I've got to wrap this up now however just one other little (or not so little) thing; I have made my decision that taking Rambo with me this journey is not going to be a good idea. I do want him there and I am going to be coming back to England over the first winter for a little bit at least (business partner's wedding) so I am thinking of maybe driving back over that time and collecting Rambo back to Bulgaria then.

We shall see.

Test trip with Julian

After my "looking forward to...." update yesterday I'm kind of continuing in the same vein but with a slightly more immediate target.

Hopefully it'll be sunny in Keswick this weekend

This evening I am picking up Julian and heading on up to Keswick for a weekend to see just how it is living in him, and also to check out the work which was done to fix the hookup and electrics, while meeting a few friends for some beers. I am really looking forward to getting on the road and taking him on the longest drive I have yet and also spending time in one of my favourite places in England.

Derwent Water, Keswick

I suppose in one sense this could be a "for the last time" because I am not sure if I will manage to get up to Keswick again before I leave.

There's a thought.

I'll be taking lots of pictures and will blog next week about this weekend :) here's to Julian being fully up to scratch and operating exactly how I want him to.

Ridge walking in the Lakes

Thomas is going back into the garage next week to have his cam belt checked, and also have the slight overheating problem I have seen over the last few weeks looked at; they think it could be a water pump but we'll see. He doesn't overheat with any regularity, and when he does it is easy for me to cool the engine back down again either by moving, or putting the internal heaters on. Sitting in traffic for twenty to twenty five mins (which I do every day to work) doesn't cause any overheating so it is very strange. Hopefully they can get to the bottom of it.

With Thomas being off the road I'll have Julian up at my house (unusually) so next week I'm hoping to get to focus on building the rabbit hutch into him. Again obviously I'll take photographs and blog about this. I can't wait to see how that works out.

Sassy-bun

Finally I heard from Lubo through my contact and it seems like I may take him on to push forwards on the PUP and planning permission. He's given me a quote which is reasonable, and I'm just waiting for the contract and a Power of Attorney to be sent so I can get it signed and returned and then he can crack on with it.

It seems that the PUP is sent off and the department HAS to respond within a month and:

If the ministry does not reply within a month of receiving the letter it is considered as "silent consent" and then we could proceed.

This would be very nice indeed, if it turns out to be true.

So back to waiting for contracts and paperwork from architects; I love this, I really do!

Time is passing

 Only 106 days until I leave - wow it is really going fast now!

Today I am looking forward to...

..... sitting in my front room in the summer with one of my classical vinyls playing at top volume.

..... waking up with the sun rise and seeing the mist clearing from the river valley below my bedroom window

..... watching the snow fall through my windows while listening to the fire popping in my Rocket Mass Stove

..... emptying my year 1 humanure store at the end of the second year and using it to improve the soil

..... driving up to Stara Otcheliste with my parents in mid march next year and realising "I am not leaving"

.....the first harvest from my land

and I tell you what....

.... I cannot WAIT!

Excited