Last Post for 2012

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.

Soon Be Christmas

Not much of a post, more of a, we’re still here and thinking about things, and waiting patiently for some sort of news or movement. We’ve had our third potential bite on the house sale, and this one actually looks promising, the first was an investor and wanted to offer silly money. The second was a slightly dippy couple, he seemed interested, she not in the slightest bit. The third is a single lady, first time buyer, looking to move out of the inner ring of suburbia. We live in hope.

The weather is too cold or too wet to tinker with the motorhome, so the Trim Project is in abeyance; couple that with me working every weekend for the last five weeks and the time has gone. I did four weeks of 4am starts which was a killer, and meant that the Fridays that I don’t work was a total loss as all I did was catch up on sleep. The plus side of all this is that we’ve had a few extra pennies at a time when they are most needed.

There is light at the end of this particular tunnel, I think I have five days off at the start of December (I think that’s next week), so while the day light hours are short, I have five of them soon and of course, once the door panels are off. Then the remaking and re-covering is a sit at the dinner table and tinker job.

We had the Brakes sorted out for the MOT, and we can say that the motorhome is winterised, all except an Anti-Freeze and engine fluids check, but I hope to get these bits done next weekend. I hope to do a bit more writing of my first attempt at a novel.

I’ve been, doing mini biographies for the characters to remind me of what I’ve been thinking about them and their interactions for the future. This is because I can’t write consistently. To define: I can’t write consistently; I mean I don’t get to meet my muse at times to suit both of us ... our calendars are not synchronised. I work ... it doesn’t therefore it can come up with fantastic ideas while I’m in the middle of racking a server, or cooking the dinner. I do have gadgets such as the good old fashioned pen and pad, a Dictaphone, even voice recording on the phone. But then getting a clear period of time to rationalise and write from snippets isn’t easy.

Neal Asher, whose blog I follow, tries to write two thousand words a day, and usually succeeds. I’m lucky if I can manage two hundred, though on my best days I can knock out five thousand or more. However that five thousand will come from three or four weeks of bare notes and reminders. Neal Asher is a successful SciFi novelist, so maybe I’m setting my aspirational bar WAY WAY too high for this early in my fantasy career, but a target is a target and this one is as good as another.

Does Blogging eat some of that writing time? I guess so, but then there is the fact that if your thought bucket is overflowing with minutiae, you end up with head clutter. That’s why this post is a ramble ... a mental comfort break.

I’m going to cook the dinner.

PS: The Sloe Gin is looking very red and fine.

PPS: If you're Neal Asher and you read this. Thanks for the target, and all the tips.

No News is No News.

This last week has seen us being miserable, anxious and generally irritable. It’s not a great time of year, with the clocks going back, and daylight hours being restricted to that portion of the day you have to spend inside at work. The only people to view the house couldn’t be arsed to give the estate Agent feedback; we assume that’s the last we’ll hear from them.

Time wasters, I reckon they are at least thirty percent of footfall, based on previous sales. Now we need the other sixty percent to come knocking, and we are now counting down the days to the opening up the sale to other estate agents.

In terms of planning options, we are currently in suck it and see mode. We’ll know what we are doing next when the market moves. If the market moves?

On the up side we had a really great time on Saturday at London fields Lido (the last heated open air pool in London) and we plan on going as often as possible through the winter months … well just because why not? And we now know what we are aiming to do on Boxing Day.

Picture courtesy of the Guardian Newspaper (you can't take your own ... people get cross and call the police).

http://www.better.org.uk/leisure/london-fields-lido/

Other than these gems, I think posts will slow down over the next few weeks as the urge to hibernate takes hold, albeit with the odd interlude for a couple of motorhome jobs I need to get done (as per earlier post), and any posts arising based on the success or failure of said jobs.

TTFN then.

PS: The Sloe Gin is coming along fine.

Plans B, C and D etc

From day one we had to have a fallback position in case something happened that properly prevented us from going travelling when we plan in March next year. I think on balance the fates have made it as tough as they can ... the bastards. And the date is probably slipping even as I type.

It was such a simple plan. Tidy up existing motorhome, sell house, have a positively Bohemian summer, a change of era Christmas and new year, stick two fingers up at the rat race for a couple of years, travel far and wide. Return wiser and with greater understanding of our fellow man ... also appreciate that while the land of foreign is nice and warm, south of Dover they are generally feckless indolents looking for hand outs and somewhere to nap ... or to fuck your missus while you’re scouring the bars looking for a good English Breakfast. I jest of course, I don’t eat English Breakfast in the land of foreign; I eat foreign so the foreigners can’t point their, Frog, Spic, Phlegm, Wop, Bubble or Dago fingers at me and say I’m not cultured or multi cultural ... init matey peeps (the management apologises for the narrators slide into abusive  names for the residents of greater Europe).

It’s not much to ask is it? Where in this simple to conceptualize, relatively easy under normal circumstances to execute plan was there a clause desired by any of the travelling parties, to make the entire enterprise as complicated, expensive and as mentally and physically draining as it has become? Did we assume too much? Did we forget we were in a recession? Or did we just invite all the bad luck in the world into our lives by dreaming a little bit bigger and brighter than people like us should (whatever “people like us” are)?

I’ve climbed a few of life’s mountains in my time, I’ve stared down some pretty harsh odds and some harsh times associated with those odds. And while at the time I may have twisted and writhed on hooks of mental agony and anger (multiple spinal surgeries, a horrific divorce from a vengeful harpy, almost without peer ... other deep shit). I like to think each time I’ve come out the other side a bit wiser and stronger. And with no small amount of time, I can look back and make light, almost see a retrospective cause and affect ... some may call that twenty twenty hindsight with rose tinted glasses (well they will if they ever read this and pick up on the phrase). And most important of all I’ve regained my sense of humour ... had I not? I don’t like to think about “had I not” it goes to places one shouldn’t contemplate very often, or for very long.

I think I’m tough mentally, and I know how to roll on the ropes, and Amanda is likewise tough in all the right places, but also has the one thing I lack in my makeup. Amanda can forgive herself her mistakes and move on. This is useful, because she can also point out that I’m beating myself up, and that I don’t actually need to ... after all nobody died ... yet.

Anyway enough of the maudlin; we had to have a plan B, a plan C, and a D, though in fairness C and D didn’t become official until September when we realised the year was running out.

Plan B

Rent out house in Essex, it makes no money but it loses nothing either (it becomes self sustaining in terms of mortgage and insurance). Move back to Somerset for cleaner air, slower pace of life. Wait for recession to pass, then sell house then go travelling. Plan B is the path of least resistance, it gives us back the breathing and planning space we lost to damp works both in the motorhome and the house, but does still have the disadvantage of moving us to Somerset in a state of unemployment and no guarantee of grabbing any kind of job straight away. So it’s a plan, but not as a good a plan as plan A.

Plan C

Sell house in Essex at lowest possible value to progress plan A (Plan A is “Go Travelling” ... it’s only once you look at the details its gets complicated). Plan C has a revision of the original: go travelling for eighteen months up to two years plan. Instead of going for two years, just go for one year, and don’t take a significant break in Cyprus for four months from October 2013 until early March 2014. Just go solidly for one year, but far more thoroughly in and around the Mediterranean coast of Europe in the relative warmth during the winter months, then in spring make a bee line for Norway for early summer. And finally back to blighty for the East of England leg.

The trade off is that the equity from the property is going to have to be spent as support for the entire venture (minus paying back what we’ve spent from existing funds to pay for repairs both at home and in the motorhome ... it’s a chunk). However with plan C, there is unlikely to be the opportunity to get odds and sods of work to offset the cost, however the benefit is that all your time is your own. Plan C has merits; one that we maybe overlooked is that by doing one year of solid travel, we can leave later in 2013. The optimal months for late departure are end of April through to the end of May. This gives four months UK travel, four to five months Europe (including a drive down to Cyprus for a week or two break towards the end), and then a leisurely roll back up through Europe to Norway and then back to the UK for early to mid summer 2014, and then if we over run into late summer, early autumn and have budget for it ... who cares, we deserve it don’t we?

   

Plan D

That’s a combination of Plan B and C. And goes something like, rent house in Essex, it makes no money but it loses nothing either (it becomes self sustaining in terms of mortgage and insurance). Move back to Somerset for cleaner air, slower pace of life. The additional elements are, only work four days a week (I already do), and spend the three remaining days using Somerset as a hub to travel abroad in the UK.

I’m sure lots of people do Plan D, without all the upheaval we are putting ourselves through, and probably do it with only two day weekends, and all the other shite that goes with living pre-retirement. However in mitigation, I have to point out that the upheaval of Plans A and C actually buy a certain form of Freedom Plan D can only dream of. And both A and C have the obvious benefit of not spending money on fuel to do a journey twice I.E. going to a destination and then returning down the same route. Plan D isn’t travelling, it’s visiting in comfort ... not terrible but not the essence of adventure, and not contiguous or focused ... it’s fucking cheating and no mistake.

I can make the point (if it needs making?) this past weekend we travelled from Essex to Wiltshire and back, that is 298 miles all in, that’s £70 in fuel, only one stop (annual spooky party at our friends ... great showers, electrical hook-up and all complimentary). All well and good, but given that we don’t in an ideal world wish to travel more than thirty miles per leg of our journey, before stopping and exploring the locale on foot, on bike or local transport. 298 miles represents a potential eight or nine stops, or almost the entire length of the south coast (point to point, no wiggly bits). So you see you don’t want to come back on yourself ... it’s not efficient, dammit and that’s that.

What can I say, it’s not so much a wobble since last week, it’s more of a not knowing how things play out for the next four weeks that our first estate agent has left on their exclusivity, and then which way to jump following the end of that term. Right now we actually need to be a little bit pessimistic in spite of the move out of recession, hopes have been up, down and all around ... we’re ready ... nothing else is.

Oh I forgot Plan E

Win the Lottery or Premium bonds.

Trims And Wobbles

It’s been an odd couple of weeks. I couldn’t, without thinking long and hard remember what it is that we’ve been doing. And then it all came in a rush ... we fitted the new cab carpet in the motorhome, started tinkering with the motorhome door panels and door furniture and looked at the practicalities of fitting the felt in the engine bay and inside the doors ... had a day off and went to visit some friends over night.

The cab carpet was a big job requiring the removal of the entire seat pods from the cab floor, temporary removal of the hand brake mechanism and the removal of numerous bits of tread trim and under dash trim. It was a slog; I’d looked at it dozens of times in the last few months to get my head around the order of events, but it doesn’t matter how much mental breakdown you do; there will always be bugs on the day. Not too many bugs and nothing that deserves a special mention aside from the following line. Just the usuals’: nuts set solid by twenty years (not rusted just comfortably stuck fast), seized screws that required constant and gentle force until they were overcome by leverage (some minor rust but nothing WD40 won’t keep at bay for another twenty years), awkward wrist twists in tiny places, not having enough arms or hands between us ... daylight running out.

The results are acceptable, but I’m no car trimmer and the overall footprint of the cab is what’s made the carpet look good not my ministrations. What we have gotten out of the job is cab noise being deadened, and I imagine a certain amount of thermal insulation, though it must be said I preferred the easy clean surface left by removing the previous carpet. A carpet I now know was not designed or intended for vehicular use ... learnt a bit about carpets and their applications I have. I’ve also learnt that broken Scaphoid bones like reminding you of your previous carelessness every time you use a socket wrench in perpetuity. I think the job is finished, but there’s a little niggle in the back of my mind saying “now it’s all fitted take it out and have it whipped”, but we’ll see.

The door panels are different set of problems, for a start I can’t work out how to get them off. I know it has something to do with the pull handle that opens the door from the inside, and I will phone the Talbot expert Mike Chubb from No1 Gear and ask for some tips next week.  What I have discovered is that it’s easy to get the panels off up to the point that I need to turn them around the centre and pull them off completely. If I get this bit wrong, the door opening levers will be “fucked” (that’s a technical term widely used in many industries). I think on balance the panels will be a doddle to remake as complete units using new, hardboard and basic upholstery techniques, however there is an argument for thin ply which is easier to cut, round off the edges, and re-mount speakers to (the current hardboard requires additional plastic widgets for the speakers to screw into because hardboard isn’t very good with being screwed to ... hardboard also warps and shrinks ... which it has). The trick is to use the originals as templates and to buy new panel clips from here http://www.bresco.com/index.html ... you can I swear, find anything on t’tinternet if you look hard enough. I then have to create new covers using the material we had our new cushions covered in, and re-use the vinyl sections from the existing covers and some nice new foam backing. As mentioned above I’m not a vehicle trimmer, but I reckon this job should go fairly well, because I’m actually not to bad with a needle and thread and the pattern is ready made, all tha’ts required is patience and a steady hand and few Youtube videos. I may have mentioned this elsewhere, but if you need to see a job being done, regardless of obscurity you will find some American person from some obscure backwater of the states that has felt compelled to share their knowledge with you. I shouldn’t mock, but some of the attempts at instruction are hilarious, but persevere and you will find knowledge, and you will be able to compare techniques which is also very useful. I have put my toe in this particular water already and discovered that my right angle outside corner technique would have buggered me up from the “get go” according to some fella from the American deep south who fixes classic fords.

Aside from door panels and carpets, there are a few more jobs to get underway, and in no particular order are:

·         New Brake disks and pads (front), they were nearly due at the last service, and we’ll get them done at the garage, I have noticed a tiny amount of judder on recent drives, indicating wear or warp (which by the way I diagnosed after watching a Youtube video).

·         New brake shoes (rear), same as the fronts.

·         Over cab storage solution (this is still in its infancy and cargo net may not be the logical choice having looked at what were are proposing to store up there)

·         Replace the stereo and the speakers (one of which is dead anyway)

·         Replace the scroll fan under the dash

·         Titivate the electrics under the bonnet (that’s clean and protect in laymen using contact cleaner, and in extremes re-making the contacts with new)

·         Re-seal the headlamps and clean them inside, the offside lens can with moderate force be removed by hand. I discovered this by accident when dealing with the front grill. I have a superb industrial sealant to remake the seals on both sides, and I get to brush out the 20 years worth of algefied crud that’s collected inside due to normal condensation penetration over the lifetime of the units.

·         Rub down an repaint the towbar, this is purely cosmetic

·         Finish the shower hose boxing in and wardrobe shelves

·         Miscellaneous other bits and pieces I find along the way

The problem I have now is time; suddenly I find myself working almost every weekend through November. I’m also working every morning from 6am (4am out of bed ... finish time is the usual) for at least the next six weeks. And evenings are dark now, I did wash the motorhome in the dark this week, but that’s about the limit for working in the dark. There’s forty four hours minimum overtime in those next four weeks, then add in the weekends and my arse isn’t going to touch the floor. It’s not like we don’t need the extra cash right now, I haven’t been this skint since 1999 (I know it’s this year exactly, because it’s the year I got divorced). I do have four days leave to take before the end of January that will scrape me back some time to do some jobs, however one has to bear in mind, inclement weather that can affect things like adhesives, ability to actually hold tools etc.

One has to ask: Where did the time go? Where did the year go?

We are allegedly off in March of next year, but there’s only two and a bit months of this year left, the house still isn’t sold, and I have the list above to complete. I’m trying to identify where we’ve wasted time, but just thinking about things now as I scribble I’m finding it hard to think of a time since April where we haven’t been killing ourselves doing something to progress the adventure or progress the saleability of the house either internally or externally.

The question then is: Have we been too ambitious with our targets? And I guess the answer to that is no ... At no point when the plan was first proposed did we anticipate spending the best part of six months and several thousand pounds re-vamping the dinning room extension to the extent that we had to. That’s where six months went, that’s where the budget went. We are on the back foot and four months looks like no time at all ... all of a sudden. It’s wobble time, we’ve wobbled a few times since we started, to not concede wobbles would be arrogant and rose tinted. At times like this you need wise words from someone long dead ... on a whim I’m going with:

“only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go” T. S. Elliot.

Fatigue, worry, doubt and not having a pot to piss in for at least four weeks, this is the low, I hope there is no lower. It ain’t that we can’t get back up, fuck it, I’ve been lower than this, as has Amanda, it’s just that you get to a certain age and climbing back up just feels like life is being vindictive.

Onwards and upwards.