Tag Archives: caravan chassis

Wednesday 3rd August 2011 – Well, I’m exhausted this evening.

I had another early start for a change and then attacked the web site. I’ve almost finished the Halifax pages and it won’t be too long before they are on line.

After that, seeing as the weather was miserable, I attacked the Sankey Trailer. That’s now empty at last, and I’ve fitted the new bracket for the jockey wheel. That meant drilling the chassis, seeing as it’s a heavy duty bracket and doesn’t fit into the holes of the lightweight one, and the huge inverter, a LIDL 300-watt electric drill and sone decent bits (stepping up from 3mm, 5mm, 8mm, 10mm) made short work of that. But the problem isn’t really the bracket – the jockey wheel just isn’t strong enough for it. But never mind – there will be one on one of the old caravan chassis that I can use.

After lunch I set about cleaning out the room that is over the bread oven in the lean-to. Full of tiles, dust, straw, all kinds of stuff in there since God knows when. That took a while and I’m now on the way to building a pile of wooden shelving to go in there. I’m going to store in there everything that won’t be spoiled by rats – such as engine oil, paint, all kinds of things like that. It’s high time I had a go at getting my storage sorted out.

So that took until about 18:30 when I ran out of easily-available wood. What I did then was to move the Sankey trailer into its new home. And I rather wish I hadn’t because you have no idea how heavy it is, and it’s all uphill as well. I finally got it to move and then I realised that I couldn’t let it go as it would roll back down right into Caliburn. A Sankey (these are the old British Army Land-rover trailers in case you are wondering) weighs about half a ton and that is blasted heavy going uphill on your own when you have a pulled muscle in your shoulder, I can tell you. But it’s now in place and I had to go and lie down for an hour afterwards. It’s a long time since I’ve hurt like that.

This evening I’ve been surfing the web. Shopping on IKEA Montreal, Walmart Montreal, a Solar Panel shop in St Laurent, and a few other places besides. I’m having to do all of this on my own of course, the way things have turned out, but it’s still exciting all the same.

With regard to a mobile phone, that scam company never got back to me, as I suspected that they might not. I was looking on eBay for a triband phone for North America but the prices are absurd, and then I saw a battery for the ancient Nokia 6110 that is hanging around here – just £2:49 plus 35p postage. What I’ll do is just pile loads of credit on my French mobile number and use that with the Nokia. It would have been easier with a proper phone and a proper phone number but there are some things that you just can’t do remotely.

One thing that I realised years ago, and I can’t ever remember why I keep on forgetting it, is that at the end of the day I just have to be self-reliant, do what I can do myself, and not lose any sleep about anything else.

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Thursday 9th September 2010 – Here’s a pic …

… of our latest toy.

terry messenger ford transit ifor williams trailer tractor les guis virlet puy de dome franceI told you a little while ago that Terry and I had bought a trailer between us – and here’s a picture.

It isn’t half a mega-beast, an Ifor Williams Trailer with a carrying capacity of 2.5 tonnes. Terry’s tractor and broyer went onto this and the thing didn’t even bat an eyelid. It’s a 4-wheeler with 12″ wheels, detachable sides and back, and a pair of ramps that would be the envy of anyone.

I have the Minerva and the 2000E estate to collect to Brussels some time when I have the room , and this will do all of that without any effort at all. I’m impressed.

terry messenger ford transit ifor williams trailer tractor les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo this morning I went down to Liz and Terry’s where we put one of the old caravan chassis on top of the other one and then put them both on the trailer.

Guillaume and his mate and then Simon came round in mi-chemin and once they had been sorted out Terry brought the load around here. We took off the two old trailers and dumped them round the side of the barn and then Terry loaded up his tractor and set off for home.

I put a couple of buckets of mortar onto the wall and it’s starting to look much better.

Tomorrow I have to go to Bill’s to fix his computer and then I’m off to Clermont Ferrand for a meeting that starts tomorrow evening and finishes on Saturday late afternoon.

If I don’t blog tomorrow night it will because I won’t have been able to find a wi-fi point.

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Sunday 20th June 2010 – The scaffolding is back here

kwikstage scaffolding caravan chassis trailer caliburn parking les guis virlet puy de dome franceTerry and Liz brought it round this afternoon. And it’s much more useful having a trailer to stick it all on so that you can just drag it round and leave it somewhere like this instead of having to maul it in and out of vans. That old caravan chassis is definitely the way to go.

And so is the hardstanding too. I wouldn’t have liked to have done this anywhere else around the place and there isn’t anywhere else really to leave it. The money I spent doing this hardstanding is money well spent if you ask me.

But the trailer didn’t half churn it up. That’s no surprise rally given the rain that we’ve had. I’ve been gradually flattening it by driving Caliburn, loaded with sacks of cement and so on, over the place where I can reach but the torrential rain is playing havoc with everything and it’s just like a running river. In the end we had to winch the trailer into position and I’ve had my money’s worth out of that winch too just recently.

We should all have gone for a wander around the brocante at Lapeyrouse after but the dreadful weather put paid to that. It’s rained on 14 consecutive days and then after a 2-day break it rained for 10 consecutive days before that. Of those 24 days, 11 days had rain of 10mm or more, and of those, 4 had more than 20 and another one reached 36.5mm. What can you say about weather like this?

And there is no end in sight.

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Friday 18th June 2010 – One of the major advantages …

caliburn caravan chassis trailer les guis virlet puy de dome france… of having a trailer is that you can buy a huge load of wood all at one go and move it back home without any problems.

It might have cost a fortune in tyres but I shudder to think of how many loads to Brico Depot, at 70kms per round trip, I would have had to have made instead of just one trip to the sawmill at St Gervais d’Auvergne.

The wood is much, much better quality than at Brico Depot, and about 60% of the price too. Mind you, he cottoned on that he had underquoted me so I replied “well I did try to tell you the other day”. And as a reward he heaped on a few more demi-chevrons.

I’ve had good value from the sawmill and I’ll be going back there again.

The trailer pulled nicely with this load on too. Although the trip back was slower, Caliburn never struggled at all, not even going over the Font Nanaud.

Once I’d unloaded the trailer I had to take it back to Terry’s. They have finished with the scaffolding on that chantier and it needs collecting. I’m busy now until Tuesday so Terry will take the trailer round there and load it up and then either he can bring it here next time he’s passing or I can collect it next time I’m passing.

It’s a really useful idea having a trailer.

And the weather? Only 4.5mm of rain today and I’m running out of dry clothes.

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Thursday 17th June 2010 – Today started off quite nicely …

caliburn caravan chassis trailer les guis virlet puy de dome france… and so I heaved myself out of my stinking pit quite early in order to catch up on what I should have done yesterday.

And by the time I’d finished, I’d made substantial and real progress. Not only do we now have another trailer, I’ve even managed to put the bent one onto the new trailer, as you can see in the photo just here as I prepare to do a little moving about.

caravan chassis trailer les guis virlet puy de dome franceTaking the wheel off the bent trailer was comparatively straightforward and once I’d freed off the brakes on the new trailer (whose idea was it to leave it parked for 12 years with the handbrake on?) I could set about winching it out of the barn with the chain winch.

By the simple expedient of tying the body to the beams of the barn, the trailer came out of the barn without its body and I just shovelled up the debris and heaved it back into the barn again. I’ll tidy up another time.

All the loose wiring and gas pipes on the chassis were sorted out and then I had to position the trailer, swap the wheels around again and then winch the bent trailer onto the new trailer. I took all of the wheels off the bent trailer to stop it rolling around, put the good wheels and tyres onto the new chassis and then tied the bent trailer onto the new chassis so it won’t move at all.

That took me until 15:30 and I didn’t stop for lunch as the weather was changing and sure enough we had a torrential downpour. And with no trailerboard (mine was cannibalised for parts for the old trailer) I had to take the lighting board off the Sankey trailer – and that needed a total rewire. So I did all of that in the pouring rain. 15.5mm we’ve had, and it all fell in a four-hour spell this afternoon.

But soaking wet as I am (yet again) I can at least move the bent trailer and I have the other one to fetch my wood tomorrow for the barn roof, if the weather ever stops raining long enough for us to make a start.

I’ve always said I work much better under pressure and having to give Terry a hand to set his business up, I’ve accomplished far more this last three weeks back here that I ever would have done if I had been left to my own devices.

But I wish it would stop perishing raining.

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Wednesday 16th June 2010 – I went out to take the stats this evening …

hanging cloud les guis virlet puy de dome france… just in time to see this cloud drifting in through the trees from the north-east.

That gives you some idea of the weather today. We had a slight improvement – just 19mm of rain. But the sun never broke through and it was grey and miserable all day.

I’ve detached the body from the caravan chassis but I can’t move it off onto the floor until I move the chassis out from the barn. And to do that I need to take a wheel off the other trailer and I wasn’t going to do that in this weather which is a shame because I could have finished it today.

But it really was miserable and in the end I gave up any pretence of working and came up here and did nothing at all. You really ought to have been here to see the weather.

In other news, I see tbat the United Nations is opposing the repatriation of Iraqis due to the “levels of violence and human rights violations”. . So if that really is the case, can someone tell me why it is that the Anglo-American’s invaded Iraq and deposed Sod’em Hussein? I thought that it was to get rid of an oppressive tyrant and go for a peaceful and stable regime respecting human rights.

So what’s going on?

No prizes for guessing what’s going on in Afghanistan though. This is something that you always suspected, and now it’s been proved to be true. All these British and American soldiers dying so that companies such as Rio Tinto Zinc and the like can make a fortune.

And it wont have escaped your notice that despite almost 300 British soldiers being killed in Afghanistan, the three groups that have done the survey are all American. So what do you think that the UK will get out of its military occupation, its huge financial sacrifice and the deaths of its military personnel?

It’s really hard to believe it, but the UK has fallen for it again! It’s totally pathetic.

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Tuesday 15th June 2010 – Errrr ….

… well, yes!

The broyer arrived here comfortably on the back of the trailer. And the trailer looked extremely comfortable on its new tyres too.

So once we unloaded it, Terry set off back to pick up the tractor. And after a while, Terry turned up – riding the tractor, with the van and trailer nowhere in sight.

caravan chassis trailer folded up on A frame les guis virlet puy de dome franceIn fact, the trailer has folded up, as you can see.

There was clearly not enough ground clearance on the trailer and what it looks like is that as Terry has turned to go up a hill, the front end of the van has raised (as you would expect), the back end has gone down, and the jockey wheel on the trailer has grounded out.

And instead of the trailer riding up on the jockey wheel, the weight of the tractor on the trailer has kept the trailer flat and the A frame has given way instead. After all, there was probably well over a tonne of pressure on it at that precise moment.

Mind you, if there were to be a problem with the trailer, here would have been exactly where we expected it to be. It wasn’t as strong as it might have been and we did have to weld part of it as you may remember. And I have to say that our welding was fine and it probably held it together.

It was our intention to replace the A frame in early course and so it will just have to be in earlier course.

And of course there is nothing wrong with our theory about all of this. It’s the practical side that has let us down.

terry messenger mowing field tractor broyer virlet puy de dome franceAt least the tractor did actually arrive here and Terry did end up by mowing that field as planned so it wasn’t all in vain. We did what we set out to do, and that’s something.

The next question of course is “how does Terry get his tractor back home again?”. And that’s something that we can deal with without too many issues. Steps have already been taken in that respect as you will find out if you read on below.

caravan chassis trailer les guis virlet puy de dome franceInside my barn is another caravan. It’s the one I lived in between 1998 and 2003 and the interior was trashed by rats when I was ill. But never mind the interior – the chassis is in much better condition than the other trailer, having been stored inside a barn for the last 12 years.

So once Terry went off to mow this field, I set about taking the caravan body off this chassis. You can see that I’m well-advanced here and I reckon I’ll have it finished and the trailer outside by tomorrow afternoon.

Next step of course will be to put the flooring and the tyres off the other trailer onto this one (so we won’t be wasting what we’ve already spent) and we can use that to get the tractor back to Terry’s.

It’s all good stuff and all of this isn’t half solving a lot of my space and storage issues. It’s an ill-wind indeed that doesn’t blow anyone any good.

But talking of ill winds and blowing, we were blown another depressing November day with another 25.5mm of rain. This weather is totally absurd. I’ve never known anything like it.

And in other exciting news, there’s a CREFAD (the organisation that gives encouragement and assistance to businesses in the Auvergne) meeting about eco-building and renewable energy taking place shortly, and I’ve been approached this evening to see if I would like to sit on the Panel. Is the Pope a Catholic?

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Saturday 12th June 2010 – Long Distance Runaround

Well … errr … Yes. No wonder I’m feeling Fragile “That’s quite enough of that” – ed. 

american mikado 2-8-2 steam locomotive 141 R 420 montlucon allier franceAnd I bet you never ever imagined that there would be a steam locomotive involved in today’s rubbish either. Especially not a North American “Mikado” 2-8-2, but nevertheless, here you are.

And in case you are wondering all about it, I’ll tell you more of this anon.

Just for a change for a Saturday I woke up early “lucky Early” – ed and after breakfast I went to fetch the two spare wheels for the caravans.

And I know that they are here in my barn. I remember very well having a blow-out on each of the two caravans when I brought them down here and changing the wheels at the side of the road. And I know exactly where I put the wheels with flat tyres when I arrived here too.

But the way things are around here, if they aren’t in their proper place then I’m well and truly snookered.

In the end I turned over the four piles of tyres but they weren’t in any of them and that has really got me puzzled now. But no matter – off to Liz and Terry’s to get the two off the trailer. And I really didn’t want to do that as I need those two to stay inflated so that I can move the other caravan chassis around but it really can’t be helped.

viaduc des fades gorges de la sioule puy de dome franceThe trailer wasn’t there of course, it was out on a chantier with the scaffolding and so I had to go around there to liberate the wheels.

This chantier is taking place at the old railway house at the Viaduc des Fades, about which I have written a great deal in the past and there’s an excellent view of the Viaduc from there. As you might expect, his calls for a photo.

So having liberated the wheels, it was off to Commentry to the tyre place. And it was indeed the guy who I had met at the autocross back in 2008 and who reckons he can source all kinds of unusual tyres. So having posed the question, he replied “well, I’ve switched the computer off now. Come back Monday afternoon and I’ll order them. We might have them by Tuesday night”.

But Tuesday morning the tractor needs to be on site so that’s no good. Off to St Eloy les Mines to the new tyre place. And the only 13-inch tyres that he had were “reinforced” – not even “commercial van”. And there he was, insisting that they would be good enough. I don’t like the guy at that place and I never did and I’m not putting any old tyres on that trailer just for the sake of it.

So off to Pionsat to referee this challenge match. And the pitch all overgrown and full of weeds and two players practising their golf on it.
“When’s this match taking place then?”
“September” Matthieu replied.

Ahhh well.

But in for a penny, in for a pound. I had an unexpected couple of hours of freedom and an urgent task to undertake so I went chaud-pied to Montlucon to the tyre place at the back of Carrefour – he who had done me proud with tyres for Caliburn in December.
“What’s it for?” he asked
“A caravan chassis that I’ve converted into a trailer for carrying heavy loads. The existing tyres just collapsed under the load”
“What kind of load will it be carrying? A tonne?”
“At the very least” I replied

So a rummage down at the back of his storeroom produced three 10-ply steel radial commercial van tyres. “These will do you fine” he replied.

Downside is that I can’t have them fitted until Monday as he is full to the brim. But that gives us Monday afternoon to play about with them.

He is also having a sale on tyres for Caliburn – buy two and get the second half-price. And I need two to go on the front as I don’t want to wear out my snow tyres. These will set me back €216 which is a far cry from the €272 that I was quoted back in December. All of this is working out expensive.

So then I realised that I hadn’t done all my shopping (I’d bumped into Bill in Carrefour and while we were waiting for the tyre place in St Eloy les Mines to open, we went for a coffee) so off I popped to the Intermarche at the back of LIDL.

rotary snowplough allier franceThe parking borders on to the railway line and there was a crowd of people gathered around the fence peering through it. It seems that it’s some kind of Open Day at the railway roundhouse and there were several old and interesting objects on view.

One of the things that caught my eye was this delightful rotary snowplough. It’s not a patch on the rotary snowplough that I saw at Chama in the Rocky Mountains in 2002 of course, but it’s quite impressive for around here.

french sncf diesel railcar montlucon allier franceFrance’s railway – the SNCF, or Société Nationale des Chemins-de-Fer Français – underwent a huge modernisation programme in the 1950s and 1960s just the same as most Western countries. Steam locomotives were retired from service and diesels took over.

Everyone who travelled around France in the 1960s and 1970s will remember the typical red-and-cream diesel multiple-units and railcars that replaced the steam shuttles and it was nice to see a couple of them on display here.

american mikado 2-8-2 steam locomotive 141 R 420 montlucon allier francePride of place, however, has to go to the Mikado. It’s a 2-8-2 in Anglophone notification, although the French, who count the axles not the wheels, would call it a 1-4-1.

It’s one of the R class – number 420 in fact, and was built by Baldwins in the USA just after the war as part of the “Marshall Plan” to re-equip the European rail network after the ravages of World War II. France ordered 1340 of these (to give you an idea of how much of the French railway network was destroyed during the war) but only received 1323.

american mikado 2-8-2 steam locomotive 141 R 420 montlucon allier franceThe other 17 are lying at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Newfoundland, due to the ship that was transporting them – the Belpamela from Norway, sinking in a heavy storm on April 11, 1947.

The type remained in service with the SNCF until as late as October 19th 1975 when R.1187 performed its last duty.

R.420 had been stored by the SNCF but was put up for sale in June 1976. Luckily it fell into the hands of a preservation group in Clermont Ferrand.

american mikado 2-8-2 steam locomotive 141 R 420 montlucon allier franceIt is one of the 12 survivors of the class, although the fate of three of these is hanging in the balance since the company that was restoring them went bankrupt.

It underwent a full restoration and was passed fit for rail service in March 1982. Today, it’s the equivalent of the British “Flying Scotsman”, performing steam excursions.

As an interesting aside, in July 1987 the locomotive was officially classed as a French Historic Monument.

Tonight was the cheerleaders or majorettes competition in St Eloy les Mines and I was planning on attending. Piles of girls in skimpy costumes chucking sticks about and sometimes even catching them – but after today’s exertions I don’t think that I could stand the strain.

I hope Terry is grateful for all the sacrifices that I’m making on his behalf  so that we can get his show on the road! Missing out on a display of girls in skimpy clothing is not something I would do lightly.

And in other more depressing news, here, in the comfort and safety of my own attic, I have been flaming well stung on the leg by a perishing blasted wasp!

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Thursday 20th May 2010 – Well, the trailer is now finished…

caravan chassis trailer sauret besserve puy de dome france…as you can see, and we now have the tractor on it. All of the lights now work (with a little manipulation) and we are quite proud of what we have done – and rightly so.

But we’ve hit a major snag with it.

The trailer weighs in at 740kg which is fine. It needs to be less than 750kg for taxation purposes. Its carrying capacity is rated at 888kg and Terry’s tractor weighs in at about 1 tonne (1000kg) but that’s not much of an issue as it’s much stronger how we’ve done it and it’ll take much more weight.

But it’s the broyer that’s causing up the problem. It’s far too heavy – Terry reckons that it’s about 300kg and he could well be right, and I didn’t plan on all of this weight. It’s pretty difficult to take it off and more difficult to put it back on. And it’s much more difficult to put it inside the van too without a major and drastic rethink.

The length of the combined unit of tractor and broyer too is an issue. The weight can’t be distributed correctly on the trailer and even with reversing it on and pushing the broyer as close as we can to the back door of the van there’s still too much weight at the rear end of the trailer.

Then of course all of this is impacting on the trailer tyres. They are caravan tyres and so not up to all that much. One of them doesn’t have a maker’s plate but the other one does – and it’s rated at a maximum 1016lb (475kg) and a max of 36psi. The weight of the tractor is at the limit for the tyre never mind the weight of the broyer and the weight of the trailer itself and as soon as we put the tractor and broyer on the trailer the tyre sank right down under the weight. It has about 55psi in it right now and it still doesn’t look much better.

So we are going to have a major rethink about this trailer and maybe do some more engineering. But the tyres are going to be replaced for definite with some commercial van tyres. They’ll be so much better with the weight loading and that’s always a good start.

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Wednesday 19th May 2010 – This trailer is taking shape …

caravan chassis trailer sauret besserve puy de dome france… as you can see if you peer through the flare of the sunlight reflecting off a car window onto something inside the barn (I’ll take another better pic tomorrow).

But the trailer has now grown four chevrons between the metal frame pieces, and it’s also grown some outriggers too. The trailer base is half-done although it needs wood-treating (we ran out of the LIDL wood treatment stuff half-way through).

It’s not going to be the floor that will cause us any problems, that’s for sure.

But it’s slow going though. We’re doing it properly and that includes threading the wire through conduit and then through the chassis leg and out to the back rather than having wires dangling everywhere. We’ve also properly rebated the timber ends so that they fit nicely inside the U-profile channelling, and it’s all bolted down. It won’t half be impressive when it’s finished – which may well be tomorrow with any luck.

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Tuesday 18th May 2010 – You’ll see a few changes ….

wood to make caravan chassis trailer sauret besserve puy de dome france… in this photo too.

In the foreground is a huge pile of wood – 6 chevrons and a load of 40mm planking. That’s the floor of the trailer.

The trailer itself is in middle distance. That’s all been cleaned off and de-rusted, and it’s now painted with Brico Depot’s best anti-rust metal paint in a nice shade of mid-brown

And how does Terry pull the trailer? Well a closer inspection of the back of Terry’s van will now show a towbar and some electrics.

And that was today’s work.

The towbar was interesting though. It’s off my old Transit from the late 1990s that is lying down the field here. It was a 1984 model and I drove it for a few years until the tin worm took over. I took the towbar off for Terry and I also removed the mounting plates for him as the mounting holes looked to be in the same position. In 20-odd years the rear end of a Transit hasnt changed. But ooohhh noooo – the mounting plates don’t quite fit. They’ve ever so slightly modified the rear end.

Now I don’t know about you but I reckon that if you are going to redesign something then you redesign it and do a good job. There’s no point whatever in redesigning and then spending all this money tooling up just for moving two holes by 5mm in the horizontal plane and 3mm in the vertical plane. It’s a pointless waste of money. But if Fords can subtly modify the rear end of a Transit then Terry and I can not-so-subtly modify a pair of mounting plates. And now the towbar is on.

Tomorrow is connecting up the wiring to the van, wiring up the trailer and then fitting the floor.

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Monday 17th May 2010 – It’s been a long time …

front of barn roofing sheets les guis virlet puy de dome france… since you have seen the front of the barn looking like this. In fact, you’ll notice that the Subaru has gone (it’s now down by the Passat) and the caravan chassis has also gone, with the roofing sheets for the barn being put where the caravan chassis was.

Terry and Simon came round today and helped me move the stuff and once we had the caravan chassis out, we changed a wheel, freed off the brakes, pumped up a tyre and took it round to Terry’s.

caliburn caravan chassis trailer les guis virlet puy de dome franceIt’s in worse condition than I thought having stood outside for 8 years in total and 3 years since the dear departed Liz smashed off the body with an axe. So first thing was to take off all the wooden floor and scrap it.

Once we had done that we freed off everything that needed freeing and that was when we noticed the bent corner jack. And in undoing that, that was when we noticed the chassis rot. This is not going to be as straightforward as I expected.

Luckily Terry had some angle iron and an electric welder so he did the first bit and I did the second and considering it’s 15 years since I last did any electric welding I was quite impressed with what I did. But really I’m going to have to get some gas bottles again – I’m much better with oxy-acetylene welding.

Once we had the trailer welded up we went off to order the wood that we need to make a super-duper heavy-duty trailer bed and then we called it a day.

Tomorrow we’ll be grinding off the rust from the chassis, painting it with Hammerite or whatever and then wiring some trailer lights and reflectors onto it. Hopefully the wood will be ready too tomorrow afternoon and we can spend the evening fitting it.

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Saturday 15th May 2010 – His NIbs made some more new admirers today.

strawberry moose julianna enval puy de dome franceYes, we did this furniture removal today and Strawberry Moose came along to take charge, supervise and in general look after the children while the adults did the work.

Of course this calls for a photo opportunity (have you ever known Strawberry Moose to miss out on one of those?) and here he is being feted by James, Samuel and Julianna while Liz, Esther and Lionel look on.

The furniture removal took most of the day, what with one thing and another, but we had a chance to meet up with Clare and Keith. And Clare very kindly donated to the cause a complete set of kitchen cooking knives that she had received as a free gift and which were surplus to requirements. That was really nice of her.

After the removal was over we went back to Liz and Terry’s where we discussed plans for the forthcoming week and also to continue the discussions over our moneymaking activities. We’re a long way from being destitute of course and we are all doing things to keep ticking over but you need to be proactive and take control of matters. Consequently on Monday we will be extracting the old caravan chassis from the wilderness around here, repairing it and loading Terry’s small tractor onto it so that it is ready for work and then fitting the towbar off my old Transit onto Terry’s van so that he can tow it about. Then Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday we will be fixing the pipes at the back of Terry’s house, seeing as the kwikstage scaffolding is up there.

 There are lots of other things too but if you plan to finish them all, the first thing that you need to do is to make the start. And that’s as good a place as any.

Once those things are out of the way we can see where we are up to.

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