A new addition to the family

Well, after the sheer chaos of fitting floors and car accidents, last Sunday we bit the bullet and went out to find a replacement for the Volvo. John had spotted a Type 25 VW minibus advertised on a "non-vw" website for a pittance and, looking at the multitude of pictures the owner sent us, it was close to immaculate. Unfortunately, it was immaculate in Wales...

So Sunday we took a 3 hour drive down to Wales to check it out. After a while, boredom set in, particularly as John will not listen to the radio unless the signal is 100% clear and so turned it off so we stopped at a gas station and bought pen and paper and we made a list of bits and pieces to spot along the way and each time one was crossed off the list you got a point. I won. :D

It wasn't as immaculate as we originally though but it wasn't far off and what is more although it showed as having 3 owners since new, the first and third owners were the gentleman we were buying it from and the second was his father-in-law (sold to him as the first ownership was under lease but there was something about the leasor not being able to buy it direct from the company so it was sold to his father-in-law for a year). It was obviously well looked after and the owner was very sorry to see her go but was off on early retirement to tour round Europe and had a brand new VW camper van coming for just that purpose.

So, K and I are off to Tewkesbury this year as reenactors and we decided we would take the van and sleep in that so this weekend John and I (mostly John) built a bed unit for it.

It basically went well but there were a few problems. Firstly, we cut the base board so that it taered towards the boot, but failed to take into account the fact that the van tapers inwards towards the roof so it wouldn't fit. Having retrimmed, we put the board in place and screwed the legs into place.

It looked great and was very solid, buttttt... we then realised that we wouldn't be able to get to the engine bay when it was in and that, because John had cut it so accurately, we could get it out again.

After much swearing and cursing, and cutting the edge off...

...we got it out, cut it dow so it could be easily removed to get to the engine bay and then - voila! it was done.

(The piece of wood stood up at the back sits on top of the folded down seats to make one long bed and there are boxes with castors under the bit in the boot so the space isn't wasted.

There is a still a little to do - we need to build an extension down beside the second row of seats as J is freakishly tall and won't fit in as it is, but it will be fine for me and K. We also need to put a couple of metal supports on the rear of the boot bit for the other board to rest on and pop a couple of handle on the sliding board to make it easier to put away. We plan to put the air bed on top as cushioning, however we have two and can only find the one that is WAY too big at the moment. Ah well, I'm sure the other one will turn up.

So after all that we have a bed. Shame my nice clean kitchen on managed to stay that way for a week! Everything is now lost under a thick layer of sawdust.

Anyway, now I am pooped - I took Nan and Grandad to the airport this morning (in the new van which they both admired being ex-lorry/van drivers themselves) and we left really early due to the extra security measures, thinking we would have to queue for ages but as it was there was no traffic and we drove straight up and parked right outside with no problems. There was, of course, tons of traffic on the way back. Hopefully it will be like the first journey when I pick them up on Thursday.

This afternoon K is coming over so we can start constucting a shift and kirtle for the weekend. K will wear the new one and I will wear Cas's old one which, hopefully, will fit. Our dressmaking abilities are severly limited as I have only ever made a Star Trek uniform, a boob tube and a Jebi robe and K hasn't made any garments (but is probably better with the machine as she used to do quilting whereas using a sewing machine generally just results in me swearing a lot). To see the jedi robes in actions (one went better than the other) see Trinity Wars.

I will take photos to map our progress and hopefully we will get loads done today as we then only have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning to finish it off!