So, as planned, we were up early and ready to head off to see the guys at Awesome. Dan came over about half nine with the parts he thought he needed to fix the distributor, and the film crew arrived not long after to document our trip to Cambridgshire.
The children and I set off in our car, with the intention that Jonathan would follow in Bertie soon after, but I could begin the meeting without him. However, by the time we got to Mildenhall - just under an hour from home - Jonathan had called to say that there was no chance of Bertie starting, and to ask me to turn around.
Soooooo frustrated again, and also feeling embarassed and awful because we have tried so many times to get down to St Ives, and it feels really unprofessional to keep cancelling. Jonathan called them and said they were fine with it, but I still don't like being unreliable like this.
Apparently Dan tried to repair the wiring to the distributor and managed to get a spark to the plugs, but the engine was so flooded that they couldn't get a start. Kirsten from the film company leant her hairdrier to help in the effort to dry things out - and all of it was captured on film. What was missed though was the most scary part - when Dan discovered the carburettor was full of fuel, and he found this out as fire broke out in the engine!!! Scary stuff... he says it could have caught fire any time we were driving. Eek!
Anyway, he has now taken the carburettor off, so that he can take it home and rebuild it over the next few days to try to fix the problem. I'm feeling the pressure of having spent a lot of time and money and not getting much to show for it... and just so helpless. I hate being so ignorant about these things.
On a more positive note, since we haven't been able to get anywhere with Bertie today, I have spent the extra time having another look at the layout.
We have found a cheap second hand caravan stove and sink on ebay, but the sink and burners are the opposite way around to the way I had planned, so we are going to switch the sides in the rear, having the cooking space to the right as you open the doors. A minor change, but it all needs thinking through. This will allow us to have the burners near the doors, and the sink towards the middle of the van - hopefully this will be safer and will allow us to use the back of the seats for hanging space without setting things on fire!
The most major breakthrough though, has been a rethink of the sleeping arrangements. I have always considered that we need to use the kids' travelling seats to make the double bed, and therefore need another space to fit the other four beds. When George Clarke was here he suggested making the
kitchen area work harder by including bed spaces here, and I was hoping to do something with hammocks above the units, but the fibreglass construction of the walls means we can't hang anything from them - there just isn't the strength. Today's 'lightbulb' moment though was considering the possibility of using the travelling seats to make beds for the children, rather than making a bed for us. Suddenly the space seemed to open up - we can make the lower level into two single beds, and have two bunks of some sort above them, making two sets of bunk beds in that area, and therefore sleeping four in the central section rather than just two. This means that there is only a need to make a bed for two elsewhere, and I think the area above the kitchen should just about accommodate that.
I've wanted fold-out tables in the middle since the first design, probably using a flip-over section of table to make two small tables into the large dining table - and now I'm thinking we could do a similar thing in the rear section - having a flip-over worktop to bridge the gap between the two sides, and making a raised sleeping platform for Jonathan and I. We would be blocking the rear doors when this is made up, which isn't ideal, but it does mean that we would still have access to the kitchen once the children are in bed, and we don't have to block the doors til we go to bed. It also means there will still be access through to the front when the bunk beds are made up.
So, tonight I'm frustrated and disappointed and stressed about the fact that Bertie doesn't go - but I'm a bit re-energised about the fact that I might just have come up with a cunning plan to make the inside work...
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