Minibus, occasional camper +van

[Deb]

Well we've just booked Eurotunnel for Tuesday morning, coming back Wednesday early evening.
So if anyone spots our van in between or going to Newark and Nottingham via M20, M25, M11, A1 please do Hoot, flash your lights or, if we are stopped, please say Hi.
Our van is conspicuous by its whited out rear side windows.

Debs

[SCANIAMAN]

hope you have a great trip,with no problems,van looking great,keep up the good work......hope you get past the gardemerie at st omer,every time i go past there i get the once over......must be the british plates eh !

[ake]

You are doin a crackin job , but do you not think the edge of the hob is a little close to the OSB partition

[Deb]

@ Scaniaman, we live near Hesdin so it's Montreuil to Attin, then straight up the A16 for us. I do know what you mean though, we were stopped a few weeks ago by the gendarmes where the payeage ends on the A26 and we have French plates on both our vehicles, no problems though.

@Ake, doesn't show in the photos, but the hob is surrounded by the recycled PC case, so there's metal between the hob and the bulkhead. We will try it out this week and if it's a problem we will replace the double burner hob for a single burner one, we never use more than one burner at a time anyway.

Debs

[ake]

Cool, didn't think you wouldn't have thought about it Have a good trip

[SCANIAMAN]

you are very lucky to live in france with me driving artics on the continent for over 20 years i know france quite well,as ive delivered there,collected there and transited through on many occasions,despite what people say about the french,i like france ,the country itself is fantastic,with me being tight i nearly always use the national rds which is heaven for me,but hate the paraphreque ! i use to stop at the shell garage overnight at 'la bozog'which is just north of tours,only because they had a very friendly german shepherd to look after my cargo at night stay lucky

[Deb]

you are very lucky to live in france with me driving artics on the continent for over 20 years i know france quite well,as ive delivered there,collected there and transited through on many occasions,despite what people say about the french,i like france ,the country itself is fantastic,with me being tight i nearly always use the national rds which is heaven for me,but hate the paraphreque ! i use to stop at the shell garage overnight at 'la bozog'which is just north of tours,only because they had a very friendly german shepherd to look after my cargo at night stay lucky

We've lived here for five and a half years, we should have finished all our renovations by now but we have been hit rather badly by the exchange rate, ah well, c'est la vie.

As I don't have any photos to post tonight I'll post a couple of links for you scaniaman, these show a bit about what we do here.

http://www.ftc62.eu/index.html

http://www.ftc62.eu/pages-features/the_ ... place.html

Just thought I'd add that we have loads of room if anyone wants a camper/camping stopover ... no charge.

Debs

[SCANIAMAN]

i hope you have a good trip tomorrow,and a safe one at that,had a look on the site ,i have saved it in my favorites,and that house has had alot of man hours spent on it ..love the fireplace

[Deb]

Thanks Scaniaman, we had a great journey, our old bus purred along all the way there and back ... just under 600 miles round trip.

The camper conversion worked well, a few snags to iron out, but very comfortable overnighting in it in Newark.

She was chugging a bit up the hills coming back with 4 x 190ah deep cycle batteries, loads of shopping and some solar panels and inverters on board!

We got the flooring tiles from Maplin and will give a report when we have unpacked them and tried them out. Looking at the samples they had on show they do look ideal for our purpose, good insulation properties too.

Debs

[SCANIAMAN]

glad to hear you had a good trip and a safe one at that and sounds like you had a good shopping trip too

[Deb]

Not done a great deal on the camper in the last few days. Playing with the solar panels we bought from maplin and having company here all last weekend is to blame!

Today my OH was busy in his potting shed so, having a spare couple of hours, I decided to tackle the transit.

First off I took all the units out ready for sanding and paint/varnish when we get time.

Then I scraped off all the white paint from inside the rear side windows.

Next I installed some frosting on the rear side windows and rear door windows. Looks much better than the whited out windows I think. Easy to apply with water spray and a sponge.

Having done that I unpacked the tiles we bought from Maplin. I have to say we are quite impressed. About a quarter of an inch thick with a slight spongy feel, but they look quite hard wearing and will be ideal for our purpose. They lock together well and it's difficult to see the joins. The edging strips that come with the tiles just finish off the edges nicely.


Units taken out ready for finishing.


This shot shows the frosting applied to windows...


... and this one.


Four of the tiles laid out to see what they will look and feel like.


Tile packaging.


Debs

[SCANIAMAN]

keep up the good work

[steviebee]

Hi Deb, Van and house coming on well. we have been coming to France for over 20 years. Have our own house now in the south(Le Lot 46). For the last 10 years have travelled in a beat up old sherpa never pulled by gendarmes once in that. Then in an immaculate ex MOD sherpa pulled several times also in wifes newish Rover. The last 3 years in my Transit minibus/dayvan and no pull. Like you, always on A26. They have never found anything wrong, and a little bit of friendly banter in my Officer Crabtree French has them laughing. Keep the pics coming of Van and House.

regards

Steve

[Deb]

Hi Stevie,

We did think about settling further south in France, but convenience for family visiting us, plus the beauty of the 7 valleys area where we live, made buying our house near Hesdin attractive.

I notice that you are based in Gravesend, quite close to us, so I guess you travel to your house in Quercy in one hop. But if you, or anyone on the forum, wishes to overnight here, or even use our house as a base for visiting our area, then you/they are very welcome. We have lots of room: parking for up to 10 vehicles at the front of the house, and a field out back for anyone into wild camping (may have to share with ponies who use our field two or three times a year) http://pagesperso-orange.fr/csmwebdesign/ponies.html We are only 10 mins from Agincourt, just over an hour from the Somme and there's a bombed out V1 site just up the road in the forest of Hesdin http://pagesperso-orange.fr/csmwebdesign/V1%20site.html

Keep the pics coming of Van and House.

Will post more pics of the van as we proceed with the work. Much as I'd love to post pics of the house I'd probably get a slapped wrist as this is a Transit forum

I just remembered, we have an old Ford advertising clock that's been in the garage for many years, I will photograph that and post over the weekend

I did the varnish work today and started the painting, I was doing it outside but it was blowing a hoolie. The sink unit was blown off the trestles and a bit of damage occurred but it's fixed now. Just a second coat of paint tomorrow and then I will take some pics with it all back in place.

I steam cleaned the roof lining this afternoon, it didn't do any damage to the lining, but it still looks drab, so we are going to paint it with grey emulsion I think.

Debs

[Deb]

Did some painting and varnishing today, outside as it was a lovely afternoon.

(or is this just an excuse to post pics of the house? )

Oh yes, and the Ford clock too

Debs