Last Legs

Nearly home.

It's springtime in England.....

We hadn't gone more than a few miles when it started. The weather. And not just "weather" but Winter.













It didn't improve much as we went North, either. We had a similar picture the next day, having spent the night with family at Ascot. An early start got us past most of the traffic chaos that plagues Southern England, and a long boring flog northwards lay ahead. The odd sleet/snow flurry didn't slow us down and we dodged the worst of the motorway logjams that we could hear about on the radio. Mid afternoon and we were here:

Strangers to the Proper North - as opposed to those Yorkshire People who just think they're "Northerners" - think that the Highlands are now just around the corner. It's still 5 hours from here to Chez Nous, at Landrover speed, anyway. And assuming decent weather....

Which didn't get any better. We spent the time talking through the highlights of the trip, of course, and reflected that only a few weeks ago the view was a bit different....

Still, the contrast, the difference, is what makes the point of travelling. If we'd stayed at home, we wouldn't have appreciated this:

....an unexpected extension to the Ski-ing Season. Shouldn't be surprised though - it's a Bank Holiday this weekend. Plus ca change....

It was strange, sleeping in a proper bed again, windows open and no Canine Chorus. We made a start on the Great Cleanup, which basically means stripping Daphne back to her underwear.

This is the shambles we brought home with us.

The Pink Dust gets everywhere, but if you think you can just vacuum it out, think again. It's not dust so much as a thin layer of dry clay. It sticks. To everything. If it gets wet, it sticks even more and forms a goo. The only way to clean it off is with a dry cloth, which means taking everything to pieces....

...and taking it out. The floor matting had to come up too, as the leaking diesel had got underneath it and it was beginning to melt.
The first major job was to sort out that leak, which involved drilling out a couple of dozen rivets that hold the rear floor in place. Once the floor was up, the problem was easy to solve...

...but not easy to see at first. Once we'd wiped away some of the crud, I was expecting to see a sharp rock or something that had punctured the skin after getting trapped under the frame somewhere. It turns out that the hole is neat, round and caused by rust - I think. The inner skin also shows a similar mark, so perhaps it's a bonding weld that penetrated a little too far? There are probably others that haven't appeared yet, so I suppose it's another thing that'll have to be replaced before the next trip. We fixed this hole with epoxy and ally mesh. Took five minutes to fix the hole and five hours to get at it.

With everything out we'll take the chance to refurbish the kitchen and storage.

As this is now moving into the area of Serious Carpentry and Bodging (SCAB), those of you who aren't into that will want to remove us from your reading list, I guess. Thanks for coming along with us - we hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did.