18/4/15
Woo Hoo ! Barge Inn 2015. Just got in as the camping was “cramped to full” 1/2 an hour after I got here. Dogs barking, indeterminate bass thumping, kids shouting, bikes revving, ahhh I love the Barge Inn. Fabulous spring day drive here. You may notice I’m not camping out of the back of the Berlingo.
19/4/15
Now the story of me new wheels is 6 months long and a convoluted tale of rogue-ary and heartache. I shan’t trouble you with the details, unless I feel the need for a little rage about it now and then, but one of the lessons learnt is “beware when buying from a Broker or Agent”. It turns out you don’t have the same protection against misrepresentation and bald faced lying as you do when purchasing from a Trader.
Ok! Newbie mistake. Parking on the tilt makes for a clumsy morning routine. You would never believe we lived aboard a boat in nine square feet for three years.
It has struck me that steering this van is not dissimilar to helming a boat. Anticipating drift but not getting in to a sway due to over compensating. When something overtakes it’s like catching a wave off the Starboard quarter as the bow turns in to the wave when it hits and then away from it as it passes. Instinct is to bear away to Port from this pitch to Starboard but only slight pressure on the rudder is necessary to keep the Port bow from digging in as too much will send you off to Port as the wave passes and then you’re in all sorts of swerving pain trying to regain stability and bearing. At sea there is usually a good deal of water to use if you make this mistake. Not so much on a carriageway.
Sorry but I feel a little rage coming on . . The water heater is broken and the gas heater every now and then sounds like a small ramjet and goes out. The Fiat garage identified £4,000 worth of repairs before finishing the initial visual inspection of the chassis. Jim Underhill (www.caravanserviceandrepairs.co.uk) reported the habitation to be so damp as to be uneconomic to repair. The steering feels as if it’s only just touching the road now and then. The gear lever has the properties of a magic wand, I wave it about and a gear seems to happen. The suspension is so weak that traveling at more than 50 mph sets up a frightening oscillation between the body and the steering. Anything over 45 mph and I really have to be on it, any lapse in concentration can get a bit scary a bit quickly. I have yet to drive it in any sort of a wind ! Yet it got through an M.O.T. so is deemed roadworthy ! !
(www.the-barge-inn.com) “view from one of my vans windows”
Which means I shall drive it until something breaks that I can’t afford to fix, which may well be sooner than later. Perhaps we could run a tote on what that might be ? Though on this first shakedown trip I have to say the ease and comfort the van offers is definitely not camping and I’ve spent the whole time I’ve been here inside it. So yet again I set sail in the bottom of a barrel, to mix my simarlies, but as I’ve said before “as is unfortunately not unusual in my endeavors, I was far too eager, interestingly unprepared and woefully underfunded.”. It’s that sort of thing that helps make it an adventure !
Hip Hoorah for doing it on the cheap ! ( Rather than not at all 😉 )
20th April 2015
Had a fine journey home. Sunshine, scenery and sounds with the unpredictable odd moment of terror as the knife edge balance between speed and concentration is found wanting.
Things I’ve learnt from this shakedown trip ;
1/ The batteries are shot. Caused a small breakdown in developing my charging routine so everything went flat last night.
All of the various emergency gadgets I had hoarded over the years for just this very occasion had an adapter missing, needed charging themselves, had no instructions or had died from old age waiting to be used.
The electrics are a complete mystery any way.
I thought of supplementing it with a solar panel but I won’t be able to integrate it, it will have to stand alone. “Easy installation” it said . . Well at least I managed to install it back into it’s box.
2/ Although the water heater doesn’t work it’s very nice to have a wet room for an all-over wash, though washing my hair is a little problematical.
3/ The heater is troubling. It makes very powerful noises sometimes. I’m hoping it only needs cleaning and I’ve had the case off to have a look but would need more tools and courage to go further.
4, 5 & 6/
45 miles an hour is good as are dual carriageways and slower traffic than me.
7/ It is a different way of driving, most everyone knows you’re going to be slow and in it’s inevitableness politeness and common sense have a moment to flourish.
8\ it is not camping.
I didn’t get out of the van from turning up to leaving.
Though I didn’t get the camping stuff out this time I would expect to get more outsideness with a longer stay somewhere.
things of note ;
Swaths of yellow Cowslips along the A40 and then after some miles of it swaths of lilac Ladies Purse.
Blackthorn, brilliant white and vigorous.
1st of May 2015 The adventure continues – 2nd Shakedown
1/5/15
Ooo glad I’ve typed something today.
Second shakedown trip going ok atm. I want to test the batteries and charging systems, the hot water, the oven, the bbq and camping setup and all of that with the dogs on board.
Neither of them like traveling so I put hardnesses on them to keep them from doing anything dangerous. They scorned my efforts of comfort and safety with Inya spending the whole journey trying not to fall off of the sideways seat and Bryony spending half the journey standing on the table ( the most slippery surface in the whole van ). Neither puked which was a blessing. I, on the other hand, had a wonderful journey.
I’ve arrived on the feast of Beltane acoustic festival. “Leave your speakers at home” says the handout. Lucky I didn’t want to test the sound system then.
Though about 11:15 someone drove a car up to the fire to use it’s stereo for something to listen to other than loads of people drumming quicker and quicker.
2/5/15
It’s so chilly that I’ve decided to bring my oven test forward and have a stew cooking slowly in the oven which is warming the van up lovely
I’m wondering if the wind might be gusting at the safety level for the awning. It has about 3 inch rips at each end of the rollout fixing which makes that judgement a little critical.
Every now and then the dogs have a bark at nothing in particular but neither of them want to go out. We did have a nice walk along the canal before most were up this morning. A lot of the barges look like live-aboards and are works in progress. It would seem you can get away with much finer safety margins on a canal boat than you can on a sea-going boat, some are definitely un-sea worthy
others not so much
Ahh ! It would seem I haven’t packed the two windbreaks I thought I had, so I’ve postponed that fiddleabout. Not sure how much more hospitable a couple of windbreaks would have made the ol’ campfire given how chilly it is. Good grief I must be getting soft. This van offers so much comfort even without the space heater. Though it looks like I’m going to be eating a lot of stew this trip.
.
Had to return home due to water hose parting in the wall. Also the effluent had filled a lot quicker than I had anticipated and the Barge doesn’t have the facilities.
Just got back to the Barge after I returned home to sort out a blown fuse. Yup, I’ve found the number of electronic gadgets you can charge at the same time plus one. It was a 15 amp fuse too that’s the size you have in the house to run emerson heaters and showers. Though charging everything and then plugging in a 50 watt amp was asking for it, now I reflect on it.
12/5/15
Up earlier than most as usual. Now someone down wind is cooking bacon. It just smells so good when camping. A small two year old mongrel called Murphy gave his owner a 15 minute workout by refusing to stop running round the cows. A lot of people enjoyed watching them both run up and down this surprisingly large field.
Settled in the sunshine 
A motorhome has pulled up with a male and female and two little, yapping, pale dogs, on leads. The two people have left the motorhome with the two little, yapping, pale dogs now tethered to stakes. Do they really not realise they have just walked away from bait with no trap . . !
Not so easy with only one small wok
I think I’ve learnt three things about pizza. Don’t let them defrost, especially on their side, get a baking tray.
19/5/15
I’m going to wear my shorts as much as is comfortably possible this summer in the full expectation that they will loose their trousered paleness to a healthy, untrousered, weatheredness.
I am keeping to my new “shorts regime” but it’s a goose bumpy ol’ ride.
I’m very aware of lots of tiny, tiny, green fly on everything. Dunno if that is precience of anything and even if it was what you could do about it.
On other matters wildlifian ;
I was keen to tell our Wildlife Trust representative that I had a rare sight to report.
A small, all white, Heron.
He though but for a moment then said cheerfully.
“Wonderful, that’s the most Westerly sighting yet of a Little Egret. They’re really establishing themselves.”
” Great 🙂 ” I responded,
but thought,
” not a midget, albino, Heron ? ohhhhh 😦 “.
20/5/15
It put me in mind of my visit to snoring hell some years ago at an Internet gaming friends gathering in Whitstable. The contingents from Germany and Whitstable started a vodka drinking contest before we had even left the house.
I was right and it did portend unwell for the evening.
During our sojourn of many Whitstable pubs some of the highlights included two of our number asleep in their plates of food, a broken tooth and the statement “oh no I know what will happen. He’ll find some people to have an argument with and then we’ll get in to a fight we can’t possibly win”.
Some time later that night I found myself not sleeping on a floor that I was sure was convex and covered in grit. Whilst on the other side of the room my international compadres subconsciously continued the contesting by rattling the French windows with the most unbelievable range and volume of snoring.
A weekend that seemed to last longer than the usual and of which I have many mixed feelings.
However the corn not so much 😦
Yes it was wrapped in lots of heavy duty tin foil and yes it is on fire.
Awning out for some much needed shade, luvlyjubly. And how does smoke know where you’re sitting ?
My Banana fritters taste better with more Golden syrup, more, much more.
7/6/15
Now you may think this trip is all about sunny days, camping food and balmy nights . . .
But I’ve been sortin’ the details of this road show . . .
And I’ve got a party to get under way and I’m getting a bit impatient . . .
8/6/15
Nearly there !
Took all morning sorting the generator out but it’s now purring away charging everything my little heart wants.
What with the runaway success the projector was last night I think the only thing I haven’t done is run everything together, out loud 🙂
As soon as I started my sound system checks I gathered the most attentive audience I’ve had since the last time I played The Globe at Hay open mic. No offence meant in the comparison guys, honest.
She’s my favourite. Her number is 501050 (she is a number, she is not a free Bovine) but I like to call her Fiftyten Fifty. Her insides will be appearing in a supermarket near me soon.
4/7/15
I just had one of those “oh yeah, that would do that” moments, as the longer candle I put in the pottery hanging light melted the hook . . .
5/7/15
The Sun is out but there is a nice breeze so it’s a hopeless task trying to grate Nutmeg in to my plum, drop scone mix !
Ok so I did my thang and overproduced the, now, plum-coconut-nutmeg drop scone mix and kept adding stuff till it was fairly obvious I wasn’t improving it. But whilst waiting for the oven to heat this gloop has doubled in size . Now I Don’t have enough oven to get it all in !!
Hmm, a little disappointed with the uneven out come. Also it took four or five times longer than the recipe said and the middles are still a bit doughy or is that dodgy ?
6/7/15
I had my doubts ( or should that be doughbts, perhaps not ) about the uncooked middle of whatever it was I spent the afternoon doing. But Inya gave them the thumbs up, perhaps not thumbs.
2/8/15
Thought I’d have a camp fry up and whilst coating the sliced, local, organic mushrooms with garlic, lime juice and butter ( it’s the way I like it !) I reflected on my rain soaked visit to the pub last night.
I stood for a while at the end of the bar, dripping, holding as talisman the empty glass I had brought from the van. The pretty young woman sitting next to me had also noticed the barman had a preference for servicing the pretty young women half way down the bar than the bedraggled ( has anyone ever raggled a bed ?), sodden, shortfatoldbaldwhitebloke not a couple of yards away.
Though we had yet to be introduced the pretty young woman said, with no formality at all, “shall I get me boobs out to attract his attention”. Unfortunately at that moment the the barman gave me a sheepish grin and took my order. I turned to the pretty young woman and said ” please don’t let the fact that I’ve been served restrain you from getting your boobs out “.
The pretty young woman’s friend choked, turned to me and gave me a high five, thank goodness.
The pretty young woman then said “yeah, but I haven’t really got very good boobs. They’d be disappointing “. I looked at the pretty young woman and said ” I’m sure you do yourself an injustice ” and as I turned to leave, with my pint covered from the rain by my still dripping coat, I said ” but now, how will I ever know”.
I wInked to her smile and walked back to the van wondering how long it had been since a pretty young woman had offered to get her boobs out for me, even in jest. Also I was sure that no matter what the pretty young woman though of her boobs I would not have felt disappointed.
And that’s local organic bacon and a local organic, double yoked, duck egg, it’s the way I like it 😉
8/9/15
Set up at the Barge Inn nice and early for the weekend. Drink some beer, talk some talk, sing some songs, repeat.
9/8/15
Camp in daylight with dog ( Inya ) and parrot ( haven’t got a name for it yet ).
( shortfatoldfeatheredmulticolouredparrot ? )
shortfatoldbaldwhitebloke 