I'm still about, hope to see you at the R&S

I've been quiet here of late. For once neither of my bikes has seen any work performed over winter.

The reason for that  is that I have been doing loads of work on my "convert a VW T5 minibus to my spec of camper" project. That project has taken most of my spare time and all of my spare money since October.

For those who are interested, the jobs I have done are:

• Design and weld a cage under the floor between the rear wheels. I have a 160 amphour leisure battery in there.
  
• cut a 9 inch square hole in the roof for an opening vent
  
• bolt a 190 watt solar panel direct to the roof
  
• Ply line the inside. This involves the use of a tonne of M8 rivnuts
  

Still to do:

• Fit underfloor water tank. Thins involves cutting various holes in the bodywork to run the hoses so I am sh!tting myself over that and being careful.
  
• Fit my 2000Watt inverter to give me 240volt electrics for a kettle and microwave. I refuse to have a gas cooker in the van because I have been in 2 house fires caused by naked flames. I have a fear of gas flames around munted people and dry fabrics.
  
• Run the wires for my leisure components behind the ply panels
  
  
• carpet over the interior ply
  
• build my custom designed kitchen. It's custom designed so that I can remove the bed, leave the kitchen in situ, and get a motorbike into the van
  

What I have learned:

• THe whole #vanlife thing is bollocks. Every part you buy which claims to be designed for this van, needs to be modified to fifit this van.
  
• 90% of People who make you tube videos about how to kit out your van are wealthy middle class rich kids who seemingly don't have to work for a living, with many of them preferring to work barefoot.
  

I've stopped enjoying the project, but I'm battling on because I have gone too far to turn back. Maybe when I feel like I am on the home straight I'll be more cheerful about it.

However, I do hope to see you at the R&S, I'll ride there on the Scream. I did a load of work on the headlight area of that over the lockdown. It'll be good to get out on that again, and to see you lot.

#vanlife sucks! Unless you are a hipster

See you in Cirencester

hang in there and see you at R&S

#vanillalife sucks ? wot you got against an honest hard working baker and his sweet sweet confectioneries

i used to work in a commercial french bakery and we had bottles of 90% alc/vol cointreau essence for flavouring various creams and fillings...half a cup of that at 9pm and it was 3 in the morning before you knew it