Goodbye 2012, hello 2013 ... who’d have thought it? We are rolling up to ten months from the date that we decided to do the off and go travelling, and on this mild very windy day in December, our start day could be a million years from now, or so it feels.
Since I last posted we’ve done pretty much nothing about anything, except bare preparations for Christmas and just getting through to the New Year and hopefully a house buying prospect that actually has a mortgage.
The most we’ve done in terms of pro-active preparation, is basic vehicle maintenance, winterisation, Redexing the fuel, complete coolant/antifreeze change and doing the weekly engine turnover drive (twenty odd miles of mixed roads to exercise the engine and clutch, that likes to seize if left too long). I also acquired hundreds of bags of Silica Desiccant from a colleague at work who mends the huge Canon print stations around our several buildings, and have distributed them liberally throughout every internal space in the motorhome to ensure as much moisture is trapped as possible. I think I may have found two small points of moisture ingress, however as soon as spring arrives and I have a little warmth (mostly to allow silicon’s to cure correctly) these will be dealt with.
And so now we inch towards January, a bit sluggish from being cooped up for a week or two due to Amanda having the worst case of conjunctivitis I’ve ever seen (I really didn’t appreciate how serious it could get), this followed by flu (that’s proper flu not man flu or a heavy cold), and of course the sloth of Christmas.
Personally; until Christmas Eve I’ve had my best winter in four years, and have been swimming at St Georges pool on the highway twice a week, and walking miles in my spare time, which has been sparse due to the volume of overtime I did throughout October and November ... Overtime? There was a time when the hours put in over the last few weeks would have rolled up to a small fortune. In truth, it still did on paper. However the recession has made the onward value of the hours I worked pretty much pedestrian. We’ve effectively paid for Christmas and no more ... not even a few coopers for the sales or motorhome tweaks.
So that’s it ... no boom, no crescendo, 2012 ends on a damp windy squib ... at least the world didn’t end ... sounds miserable. But I’m sitting here with a rye grin and half and eye on a program touting the virtues of the Great British Staycation. The sun always shines on TV, it’s already on the rise, that’s what happened on the 21st of December Precession, Solstice the start of summer 2013.
Happy New Year when it rolls over. We’ll be Back in January.
