We have added an extension to our little plot. One of these nifty pop up shelters was delivered this morning. We plan to use it like a drive-off awning and it will serve for both a weather porch and a storage space, plus somewhere to put a muddy dog to dry off.
The blurb says that the thing can be erected in two minutes “with practice” – something that we were clearly lacking. There were tent peg issues and new hard ground pegs have been ordered. Let us hope that the thing stays up until we get back from our jaunt.
It is somewhat less than a perfect solution but it is a sufficient one and cost-effective. Happily the step-over for the doorway pretty much exactly matches the step level of the van. The top side is more problematic and we may end up doing what many folk do… and roll out Vincent’s awning to bridge the gap.
We failed to pitch it perfectly but it can stay like that until our return, when we will do a better job (I hope) using the new pegs.
The afternoon was spent shunting goods and chattels out of the van, vacuuming bags of clothes into minimal volume and reorganising our living space. Now that we have four chairs empty and no present danger of piles of black bags falling from the shower room at any moment, I believe we may be ready to receive visitors!
In fact we seem to be about ready for the off, so don’t call round without checking as we probably won’t be here.
Tomorrow we will wait for the post to come as we were expecting a bluetooth speaker today. Royal Mail sent it to Newton Stewart instead of Castle Douglas. We mailed our music streaming box home the other day and the highly expensive stereo unit we acquired with Vincent doesn’t stream. We are missing Mr Palin, hence the purchase of a peedie portable speaker. We would like to have it with us whilst we are away. Once the mail comes we are off to Kilnford Barns for supplies and thence to Tesco for more mundane stuffs.
We plan to doss down at Metal Bridge. I have secured a supply of earplugs!
Saturday we are booked in at Hadrian’s Wall.