So here it is - the headquarters for the next few months



He made it out from under - a well-deserved Raja's Cup and a piece of cake


A great day on site - lovely weather although a bit cold. Not so great for R who spent most of it lying on his stomach under the caravan with an 8-ton jack (that is it lifts 8 tons, doesn't weigh 8 tons), lifting the caravan so that he could put stabilising blocks of concrete and railway sleepers underneath. A bit scary but all done now. I acted as gofer which was fine by me as I didn't want to lie under the caravan - slight touch of claustrophobia there. In fact what happened for the first hour or so was that the ground under the jack compacted and he had to keep adding bits of wood under it to stop it disappearing into the ground. I took down some of the last trees which were in the actual place where the house would be. Buttered scones for tea.

So now the van is ready for me to clean it - carpet cleaning machine tomorrow. It's actually in quite good shape. We reckoned we only could spare about £1000 for the van and we looked at what you could get for £1000..... not a lot is the answer to that one, unless very lucky. And we are going to be in it till November. So then we realised that if we bought a better van we would be able to sell it on fairly easily and maybe the difference between purchase and sale price might not be much more than £1000. Maybe. We wanted 3 bedrooms for The Girls and for any friends who might want to brave it. So this is an invitation to any friends who would like to visit our little patch of mud to come and stay. We have double glazing and a certain amount of insulation under the floor. Or wait till the summer!