On Monday morning we woke to a frost and where our waste water had been dripping was a wee block of ice on the grass, so temp must have got down to well below zero. Lucky we were nice and snug in the van. Scot braved the cold and frost and went for a run. I still cant believe he got out of bed that early for exercise!! Our action plan on this morning – Chris from Kiwi Leisure arrived early and fitted a new gas valve and piping so he could test the whole gas system which is now all safe and we wont have any issues getting on any ferries. We headed off to Leeds to find an aluminium fabricator to get some aluminium angle and plate….where’s your brother when you need them….Steve???? We found this wonderful guy Richard at RJS Fabricators in Morley who saved our lives and gave us correctly cut and bent aluminium angle and plate and then lent us all the tools we needed to drill through the van wall and secure it to the inside walls. We can’t thank him enough for helping us as we had no tools and we were finding it difficult to get the right materials. He even bought out a cup of tea while we were working! We still need to water proof the new repair but the wall is now secured. That was our whole day. Back out through peak hour Leeds traffic to Harrogate. Left over seafood chowder for tea, that was so delicious.
Yesterday a cold windy wet day in Harrogate … called for a sleep in and then laundry had to be done. Really a nothing day. We went to buy a small printer as there are some documents I need hard copies of and don’t know where to try and print them. Scot thinks its hilarious that we’re in a van and we have a printer but what else does an It person travel with? I have an entire draw with cables and connectors, camera equipment, laptop, tablet, 2 phones, gps equipment and now a printer, I think thats reasonable. Scot has the wine cupboard for his guiness, black sheep ale and assorted other beers and wine etc so we’re about even :-))
Today we have the van in being thoroughly checked mechanically and they are selling us some parts to keep with us in case they’re needed. We are currently in a McDonalds – go figure…but im not eating any thing, just a coffee and warm place in the sun whilst waiting even though just being here goes against my religion! We have a weekend in London planned and then a ferry next Wednesday over to France…fingers crossed.
9pm
We are now in Skegness for the night on the east coast. We drove down this afternoon and went via Grimsby. We stopped in at Bramham which is where my Grandfather was born. Quite a cute little village. I think I found the family house…see pics below.
Funny we pulled into Skegness and drove to the first caravan park – it was 5.05pm but they had closed for the night…damn who does that!! Closes early with no number to contact after hours to get in. Thankfully we found a place to stay. Unfortunately as Scot was backing out of a dead end he drove into by mistake, he backed into a gate. Neither of us realized until we pulled into a supermarket carpark and saw the back corner of the van and suddenly a breathless kid ran up and said you hit the gate back there. I thought we must have damaged the gate and fence but he said it was ok but he wanted to let us know where the damage came from. It wasn’t a big deal just a scrape but I’m glad it was Scot and not me!
Tomorrow we’re off to Petersborough or near there. We’ve been told the brake discs and pads aren’t very good and both need to be replaced so were making an appointment with a company in Dover for just before we head off on the ferry.
