Another action packed day at the farm workshop.
We were awake so early this morning that the day has seemed to go on for ever. What’s more, since we are still committed to serious action we got up straight away instead of loafing about having coffee in bed.
This is a Lifestyle Change for us. Our coffee-in-bed ritual has long been a happy opportunity to do absolutely nothing at all for three quarters of an hour every day. This has been the time when we have contemplated our lives, discussed our ambitions, and watched the activities of the rest of the street through the gap in the curtains.
We no longer have the leisure for such unproductive milling about, except at weekends, when we can’t get to the farm. We are trying very hard indeed to finish the camper van project.
We detached Lucy from her computer and made an extra flask of coffee. She does not seem to feel especially enthusiastic about glueing insulation to the floor of the cab, so we explained that she could just do it because she loved us. She groaned and sighed, but tugged my trainers on to her feet and came with us.
It was raining, and indeed as I write it is still raining. I am not really sorry about this, because we have had some wonderful, glorious sunshine this year so far, and it means we don’t have to worry about watering the garden.
However it did mean that the workshop was chilly and damp, with the wind breathing its melodic song through the rafters. I put all of my jumpers and my woolly socks on, and gave Lucy a padded jacket, which she took off after a while when she started to become pink and breathless.
She finished the bitumen and then set to work glueing insulating foam over the top of it. There are two reasons for this part of the project. It is a part of our ambition to create the perfect life for ourselves.
The first reason is obviously to help keep the cab warm. In the past it has been terribly cold and draughty. When we took the carpets out this turned out to be because of several large holes where the floor had rusted away.
These have gone now, to be replaced with a beautiful tin patchwork, like an overcoat belonging to the chap in the Wizard of Oz. However, tin is not terribly warm, especially with the wind rushing underneath it.
We have resolved that we will be twenty-first century insulated, and warm whatever the weather, even if we are driving at high speed through blizzards. We have done this once or twice. Mark likes a challenge. In any case I am a terrible baby about the cold.
The second reason is that in all of the many years we have had the camper van, we have never been able to talk to one another whilst travelling. This has been because of the dreadful noise in the cab.
The noise has partly been because of the rattly old engine, partly because of the previously discussed holes in the floor, and partly because of a technical reason related to the axle. I didn’t understand this when Mark explained it, and so regret that I am not able to enlighten you here.
We now have a new and hopefully far quieter engine. There are no holes in the floor and we have a new axle. On top of all of this, now there is thick acoustic foam insulation thoughtfully glued all over the floor, as you can see in the picture. We should not only be able to hear one another, we might even be able to listen to the radio.
We have got a radio now, Mark took the one out of the donor taxi and created a special space in the new dashboard for it. As well as that marvellous luxury, over the top of the foam, but underneath the underlay, which is the next layer, one of the next jobs is to put a pipe leading through into the back. This will lead to a heater that he retrieved from one of our old London cabs, before he scrapped it.
This will pipe hot air through into the back of the van.
We are going to be absolutely warm and comfortable.
What a marvellous machine it will be.
