Christmas progress

We've used our Christmas break very productively and are getting Amelie ready for a big adventure! Sam's bosses kindly offered to let us work on the van in their work garage, so it's been a lot warmer than last year!

Sam has taken out the dashboard, upgraded the main power cables and installed a new fan motor. He also replaced the front pads, discs and wheel bearings, then cut a hole for our new sliding side window. Meanwhile, I painted our cupboards and insulated the roof.  We have just finished carpeting the roof and despite a few hiccups along the way, we are fairly pleased with the result (just don't look too closely at it!)

The new roof carpet from Mega Van Mats.  We used their silver mega stretch lining carpet.

Our main holiday this year will be in the van around the Scottish Highlands for a couple of weeks, but there's lots of work to do before then!

Off with her head!

We are currently the proud owners of... a convertible T25!

Kidding!  We're just changing the roof... 

Wild camping in Toormore

There are a couple of wild camping spots in Toormore. We enjoyed another fantastic view. Getting our paddle boards on to the beach proved interesting as we couldn't find any access, but we managed and it was well worth it. Showering afterwards in our new tent at the side of the road was quite an experience!

Toilet tent and shower!

Our 'bog in a bag' toilet and solar shower from Camping International have proven very useful, as has our new somewhat translucent tent...

Switzerland and Disneyland in the T25!

Viking Coastal Trail

We travelled to Nethercourt Touring Park after work on Friday, a perfect place to start our 33 mile bike ride on the Saturday as it was just off of the Viking Coastal Trail.

The bike ride took us around the coast through Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Margate and Reculver, before heading back through some pretty little villages.  The route is fairly well signposted (route 15) with signs like this:

It's advisable to stick to what it says on the signs, otherwise you might end up doing something like this:

It's worth noting that some of the trail has limitations in peak season (from May - September) where you have to push your bike.  Thankfully, it's February now so this wasn't a problem.  The weather wasn't too bad and we even saw a bit of blue sky at times.

We found a friend for Amelie too!  We liked the colour of this one, we might paint our T25 this colour next year.

After a long day of cycling, we treated ourselves to a cheese fondue in the van.  Yum!

The next day, we headed to Broadstairs in the van.  It was so sunny and warm, we ate outside.  

Thanks Amelie for another brilliant weekend!  

More pretties by Amy!

When I was little, I used to love the Flower Fairies, so I couldn't resist buying these door knobs for our cupboards and drawers!

My favourite one is the one below as it reminds me of photos of me and my sister Emily, whose name inspired the name of our van.  It had to be 'Amelie' though, so that the 'FBA' at the end of the registration could stand for 'Fun Bus Amelie'! 

I also bought these door knobs for other cupboards in the van - hopefully they'll go nicely with our curtains and bunting.

Brighton Breeze October 2014 - blog by Amy

We jumped into our T25 after work and headed to Hook Road Arena, Epsom, where we found a field of fellow campervanners - it was very exciting!  However, we were certainly the least prepared... we hadn't had enough time to put the units/cooking equipment back in, and we didn't have any interior lighting.  So while everyone else sat in their lovely vans with their lights on, cooking dinner... we enjoyed a takeaway pizza, a bottle of wine (which we drunk from the bottle as we also forgot to pack glasses) whilst constantly winding up our eco-friendly (but not very useful) torch!  It was great fun though.

It was well worth the drive to Epsom, what a view to wake up to...

We found a friend too!

After breakfast, we all lined up and prepared to drive to Madeira Drive, Brighton.

I think we can tell who rules the roost in this camper...

The convoy was quite a spectacle as you can imagine - people were stopping to take photos of all the vans as they passed... all of the vans apart from ours :-(  Poor Amelie!  We love her though!

It wasn't long before we started seeing older vans by the side of the road.  In fact, there was at least one in the morning that wouldn't start, so at least we made it all the way there!

The journey to Brighton went well and there were hundreds of campervans on Madeira Drive when we got there.

It was good to get some ideas from the other vans there.  I like these eyelids!

To keep in with the 'Breeze' theme, we had lunch at Breeze Brasserie which is in Trafalgar Street.  The food was amazing and there was a great atmosphere, I'd thoroughly recommend it!

We had a brilliant weekend and I managed to get a hippy headband at last...

Amy's first post... pretty bits for the van!

My first post at last!  As the official 'interior designer' of our T25, I thought I'd share some of the nicer things we've acquired for the van!

We spent a lot of time on Pinterest pinning photos of other campervans.  Initially, we were going to go for a bright orange theme, as we really liked the T25s with an orange exterior.  However, having bought a tester pot of paint, we realised bright orange might be a little too much on the inside, so we've gone for a Cath Kidston/shabby chic look instead.

The rock and roll bed foams and covers are made with 'Duckegg' fabric from VW Camper Curtains Ltd  The curtains are also from there, and they are 'Charnwod Rose - Duckegg' fabric.  Initially we wanted the rock and roll bed covers to be 'Duckegg Gingham', but the fabric wasn't strong enough to have as a seat, so Sam's mum kindly made us some cushions from the same material - thanks Chris!   

T25 bed, curtains and cushions

Cornwall - The full story!

Sorry for the delay in this post my main car decided it didn't like it's clutch anymore and wanted a new one so have been kept busy over the weekend changing that!

So Cornwall,

Friday evening came and the mad rush to get everything into the van and gone was well underway, somehow nothing was left behind and we got on the road in good time.

Amazingly the M26 and M25 were free flowing which was a miracle!

The journey went well albeit slowly!  We had a 9pm deadline to get to the campsite at Stonehenge and 8.55pm we arrived, phew!  Some of my friends live not far from the campsite so we managed to meet up with them a a local pub which was a nice end to the day.  That night was quite chilly (so I was told, I had to throw the covers off every now and again!) and Amy didn't get much sleep which didn't help in the morning!

We set off after a quick bite to eat and a shower for Cornwall another two or so hours away.  Again nothing on the road so a brilliant poodle towards our next stop at Tintagel, we arrived at the campsite amazed at the views around and decided to stop for two nights here.
A two minute walk from the campsite and we were greeted with the below view!

We had arranged to meet up with one of Amy's friends on the Sunday so Saturday was our day to explore the coast a bit and Tintagel itself.  With a scrumptious lunch in our bellies I begrudgingly followed Amy around the various local shops Tintagel had to offer.  After what seemed like forever we headed back to the campsite to start preparing dinner, out first try at using our new "Cadac Safari Chef" grill.  Chicken fajitas were on the menu for dinner and boy were they nice.  Sunshine, warm evening and spicy chicken not much more a man needs!  As the stars started to come out we retreated into the van for a marathon game of Scrabble, Amy once again defeated me in style I'm sure it was along the lines of 241 - 83!
We slept a lot better that night almost 11 hours...

Whilst waiting for Jane to arrive on Sunday Amy entertained herself with the resident hen...

 Monday morning came and we set off for our next stop in St Minver only a little drive away.  We managed to get a brilliant spot on the campsite, a large section of the campsite had long term caravan's parked up but fortunately their owners were not staying that weekend!

Monday was spent walking from the campsite to Rock and then we got the ferry across to Padstow, If you are planning on staying at Dinham Farm Caravan & Camping Park we would suggest you do the walk to Rock and Padstow, it was just stunning the whole way there and back but make sure you allow enough time!

The original plan was to stay at Polzeath on Tuesday night and then do the whole return journey on the Wednesday but we thought that might have been too much in one go, so Tuesday morning we went to Polzeath as it was glorious sunshine and watched the surfers for a couple of hours during which we had a massive American style breakfast on the beach!  

With the sun still shining we started the slow journey back but with a slight detour to The New Forest where we made our last camp.  We thought for good practice we should just try and find a campsite rather than using the internet to find one, we headed off the dual carriageway and into The New Forest.  We lucked onto a really nice campsite on the northern edge of the forest which luckily had two spaces left!

 We had a slight slope on our pitch so for the first time we broke out the levelling chocks that had come with the van and almost got her level, almost!
Amy was desperate to try out the roasting pan that came with the "Cadac" so we went for an easy option roast to begin with, although we cheated slightly and did chicken breast it was still easy peasey so roast beef is next on the list!

With our last morning upon us we sadly began our final journey home, the whole way Amelie had been behaving herself but so wanted to make things interesting so just past Fleet services on the M3 the temperature gauge stopped working.  Not a problem as she hadn't once got hot the entire time we were away so just to be sure we wacked the heating on full just as a precaution and trundled home.

All in all it was a superb 5 days out and although we didn't have any bad weather or problems we have definitely caught "the bug" and we cannot wait to get her finished over the winter and ready for next years adventures.

Cornwall

So we made it back from Cornwall this afternoon!

Amelie didn't miss a beat the whole trip other than deciding on the way home to not tell us her water temp.  Not a problem gives me something to fix, absolutely shattered so will do a big update tomorrow but a little teaser for now, we had fun with Amy's new/old Polaroid camera!

Flooring part 2

After Amy did such a good job with the PVA it was time to get the top layer onto the wood.

With the help of one of our friends Tim we had a trial fit in the van before committing to the vinyl, with everything looking ok I started the messiest job so far on the van and covered the wood with the vinyl glue.  Having never laid vinyl before I was going at it blind (winging it!) but about 15 minutes later it was on and the timer started.

30 minutes later was the now or never moment...

Having cut the floor slightly bigger than the wood it gave me some room for error, after a lot of rolling and smoothing out we called it a night and left it to cure.

Amy gets her hands messy!

So it's the morning after Busfest and while Amy was still running on a high after such a good day, she was out working before I was!

With the wood floor cut Amy got to work coating it with PVA to act as a sealant.

Now that they are done and dry we can get the top layer on and it can all go in, exciting!

BUSFEST!!

We had been looking forward to this for ages and it was not a let down!

It was better than we were expecting which made the early morning drive worth it.

We managed to get out new upholstery and curtains all order courtesy of VW Camper Curtains
You will all have to wait and see when it turns up what we have chosen.

We managed to get a new camper table, rear tailgate seal (still no hightop window seals though!) a nice flower garland to decorate the front dash and most importantly a new kettle!!

New Flooring

I'm not sure how much this will help but anything extra must be good right?

 

With the insulation all in it is now time to start on wood for the floor.

The interior

Now that I had finished all of the grinding and welding (much to the relief of our neighbours!)  It was time to start on the interior and getting everything going back in.

As we are pushed for time I am using the interior that came out as a template but instead of ply we are going to be using a tongue & groove effect MDF painted white.

I am hoping to be able to re-use some of the original shelves as they are in good condition and it seems pointless spending money for the sake of it!

Not ideal!

After a brilliant day on Sunday, cutting both the outer sill and the rotten bit of floor out I was all set up to start welding the new sill panel back.  I managed four runs and then I ran out of gas!! With it too late in the day to rush out and get some more it would have to wait for Monday.

With a phone call to dad (the first of many to come I think) I went out to get some gas bright and early Monday morning.  With it being a completely typical bank holiday the heavens were open and set on ruining everyone's day off, luckily we had a plan.

Some how we had acquired a outer tent for what looks like a small army so we threw that over the top of the van in order for me to do the welding.

I have to say it is not the best nor the prettiest welding I have ever done but hopefully it will do the job.

Luckily our makeshift awning held on through the downpour(s) and we managed to get the panel welded on and ground back ready for some filler.  Unfortunately by that time the tent sheet had become so sodden it was just dripping too much onto the van panel to even try and filler the panel.

Dad helped me with some odd jobs on the van before heading home rather soggy..

Thanks for your help dad, I'm sure you had better things to do than pretend to be a tent pole for a day!! :)

Making some noise!

What better way to impress the new neighbours by taking a grinder to our bus on the bank holiday weekend!

The Saturday was taken up with laying concrete in the garden for my new shed/store/workshop! 40 bags of ballast and some concrete later we had a base!

Sunday morning nice and early began with coverering as much of the fabrics in the bus as possible as I planned on making alot of mess!  With the clock hands pointing at a respectable hour to start grinding I began.

By midday I had most of the floor section out so lunch was called and my trusty grinder could have a break.

Fortunately for the neighbours the outer panel did not take that long to cut out so before long this happened!

With Amy off to do a wedding I was left to my own devices much to her worry! What could possibly go wrong...

With the outer sill panel now removed I was able to get a better look at the top part of the inner sill and decided that it would be better to cut that out as well.  A little while later I was left with two holes.

I managed to get every thing smooth and ready to fit the new panel with still enough time left in the day to make noise.  The panel