Monday
It’s a beautiful sunny and warm day. Clearly the weather hasn’t realised it’s October, but I’ll take as many more days like this as we get. I have a very full work day of meetings, and hanging over me is the task of removing all the deck board from the back of Betty.
I attack this job with a little and often mentality and after 3 sessions throughout the day I have transported all the deck boards over to the island and all that is left in Betty are the rotten or damaged boards to go to the recycling centre. Speaking of the recycling centre I really need to go and completely clear everything out of Betty. A job for tomorrow. To make my life easier I load up everything that needs to go and she is ready for tomorrow. At the last minute I get a message saying that someone local has some pallets available which I have been looking for, for the hot tub deck project. I jump in Betty and we do our first night time drive. All goes well except that the road where these pallets were located was a small residential road with no turning room. I had a slightly queasy 10 min trying to reverse Betty out, in the dark, with parked cars down the side of me. Luckily no cars, nor Betty were harmed in this adventure. We made it home with Betty filled to the rafters of things for the tip and some massive wooden pallets. I’ll leave dealing with all that until tomorrow.
Tuesday
Another full day of work meetings, not leaving much time to devote to Betty. Honestly this working malarkey really gets in the way of spending time on my projects! To combat this I get up early and decide to move the pallets from Betty over to my house before I need to start work. They are hugely heavy and I wonder what superhuman strength I had the night before that meant I loaded them onto the bus in the first place. I manage to woman handle them into the boat and then out again into the garden.
The universe must have been rooting for me as no sooner had I finished, than the heavens opened and we had a torrential downpour. About lunchtime one of my neighbours met me over at the bus to relieve me of some of the furniture inside of Betty which he hopes to up cycle. I feel happy knowing it’s going to someone who will use it. Unfortunately there is still rather a lot left in Betty that needs to go to the recycling centre and I can’t really move forward with the conversion until she is clear and clean. Another stroke of luck. Laurie says she is free to come with me and we get a break in the rain and my work meetings! It’s strange to have a passenger in the bus as up to now it’s all been solo trips.
We get to the recycling centre and I see all the same employees as when I was there a few days earlier. They recognise Betty right away and come over to help unload her. She is clear in no time and we head home substantially lighter than when we arrived.
I feel this is a big success and step forward. Frustratingly, I have to be in London for work for the next two days so Betty will have to wait until Friday evening to be cleaned out properly.
Thursday
There is probably only an hour left of daylight but I’m determined to use it and get the hot tub deck sorted. Once I’ve smashed out this project I can go back to focusing on Betty. As hard as I tried to get 4 pallets the same dimensions, I did not, and the next hour is spent levelling and shimming them up to create a level, flat base which will then be clad in deck board. I’m impressed at how much I get done and hopefully can finish it tomorrow. The weather is really starting to turn so I’d love to get the hot tub up and running so I can use it!
Friday
An almost complete write off (see blog post entitled Just One Of Those Days )
Saturday
Electrics course day 1 (stay tuned for a separate post)
Sunday
Electrics course day 2
Round Up
Not a hugely progressive week for Betty, but some big wins despite! Completely clearing her of all the furniture means that next week I can giver her a good clean and start installing the privacy film on the windows. This will stop people being able to see inside, but I should still be able to see outside when I’m in her.
I thought I’d found success with the door lock but it still needs some tinkering and there’s actually a bit of work to do on the door to ensure it’s propelled greased and opens and closes easily. I also want to address some small areas of rust on the door frame before they become a bigger problem.
With the bus clear of furniture an exciting step forward is to mock up my interior layout and double check dimensions.
Stay tuned for all of this next week!
Live Wild and Free 