We had a great time at Dance Camp North again, weather was mixed, but good old Oakley kept us warm and dry. It is so good to be able to light the woodburner, which allows us to still have the doors wide open and be warm, and in nature too. How soft are we?

We have been umming and ahhhing for a while now about the cab, especially since I finished doing the woodwork.  The old style and colour of the paint work was letting Oakley down.  A respray was in order and we got a quote.  It felt too much, so Sandra equipped herself with filler and wet and dry paper and made a start on the rusty bits, but we couldn’t find any paint remotely close in colour.

Our neighbour Phil offered plenty of advice and the loan of a spray system, but nothing happened.  Then Sandra’s mum sold her caravan and we benefitted from a generous windfall which made the respray quote feel affordable.

Now he is a lovely pale cream with beautiful metallic brown bumper and grill – very smart – and we are pleased.

Sanding the mahogany panels

Oakley is having a facelift.
When we got him we didn’t pay too much attention to how Oakley looked from the outside. We just gave him a wash and brush up and splashed some filler in a few gaps. Since then we have had a bit of leakage and have been waiting for some good weather to have go a a ‘proper’ job. And waiting and waiting.
This weekend looked good so we made a start. Thanks to Derek and Maureen for their kitchen socket and Phil and Lisa for their extension leads and we ran a power supply to Oakley and cracked on with a brand new random orbital sander. Getting rid of old varnish is always a thankless task, and always takes longer than you think.

Next problem was what to finish our work in. We started on the side which has had some repairs in the past and 7 of Oakley’s lovely mahogany planks have been replaced by pine floorboards. These have proved tricky to match. We have tried a few different combinations of stain but have arrived at an antique pine followed by teak which looks fairly close. The mahogany has been brought to life with Danish Oil (or dog oil as Sandra calls it). First coats now done and Im waiting for some filler/sealant for some of the gaps, but we are very pleased with the results so far.

Final touches are adding deep brown gloss to the verticals and guttering.

We planned a trip around Easter and the weekend after but bottled out for some reason even though we would have has the warm April weather.  This trip was to Silverdale again and another DCN May Camp AND the anniversary of our first trip ever.

We had a very pleasant weekend testing out all the facilities Oakley has to offer, including brand new features such as bedside tea mug holders and driftwood pegs around for hanging things.

The weather was good up to Sunday night when the wind got up and it turned cold.  We ended up with 13 people in Oakley plus a guitar and had a good old sing song.

He hasn’t been neglected.  We took him for a ride to Brighouse and back on January 4th to ahve his tyres checked and a full tank of diesel whilst it was cheap.  He has had a few fires lit especially when he became a base for Raku pottery firings.  And more recently he had become a drumming rehearsal space for Abelungu

Today Sandra has given him a good clean and I have been messing with his electrics.  I have fitted a trickle battery charger to keep his engine battery nicely peckled up.  I have also finally got round to fitting the smart relay which allows the leisure battery to be charged once the alternator has charged the engine battery after starting.  I wasn’t that sure how it all worked but I wired it up and started the engine.  Sure enough 12 volts were being sent to the leisure battery – in fact 14.2 volts were being sent.  Good charge from the alternator.  SO I turned the engine off and was quite alarmed to find there was still power going to the leisure battery.  However once the voltage dropped to 13v the relay switched off and the 2 batteries were separate again.  Marvellous.

I just need a cable running through to the leisure battery and bob will be my uncle.

Sandra discovered a load of mould under the main tin storage shelf so we had to take that out and give it a good scrub.  We then remembered we had had a disaster early on with a jar of pickled onions tipping and spilling a load of pickle juice.  We didn’t clear up properly then so that has probably caused the mould.  Sorted now.

Next job is to have a look at a locker under the double doors for storing outside stuff.

Had a good drive down to the midlands on the first day staying at a lovely pub with a very ‘cute’ campsite on the way down near Tewkesbury on our way firstly to visit Chris and the boys in Somerset for 3 days in gorgeous sunshine, then on to windy Devon to see Neil & Clare (could hardly stand up when we got there).  The rural campsite with tipis and yurts which we had booked in to was deserted, miles from anywhere, and very strange to say the least, so we turned round and went to another site a mile and a half from Neil’s house.  Not our favourite, but at least it was clean and very near to Braunton which was the whole point of the exercise.  Had a lovely time with Neil & Clare, there house is lovely, very old with 3 foot thick walls right in the middle of Braunton.  Oakley was a bit neglected, as we stayed over at Neil’s on a couple of nights, and we never noticed that he had a bad leak due to rain plus high winds which blew the rain through a crack or two and soaked the bedding.  Hence, a washing line hung inside drying everything on the way back. When we got back to the pub we had stayed at on the way down it was under water, and they didn’t serve food on a Monday – great!  Never mind, we found another site which was almost as strange as the tipi site (the owner had been born in a wooden gypsy caravan, along with . . . . wait for it, his 22 brothers and sisters!!!)  We got the wood burner lit when we got there, battled with the washing, drank some Oakleys cider and had jacket spuds and beans for tea – marvellous!

So, feel a bit sad that it might have been the last trip of the year, but you never know we might sneak another one in . . . . . . .

We went to Fell Edge Fest last weekend.  Oakley was in a field with other vans and as it was very wet as we arrived and the field had quite a slope we knew there would be trouble..  Drove onto the field and swung to the right and stopped – dead – never to move again.  Not a bad pitch but not level either and we couldnt get enough grip to drive onto the cheeses.  After a certain amount of umming and ah ing we decided to jack up the van.  It worked as we got a long way up – nearly level.  We built a wooden Jenga tower under the suspension in case the jack failed, put down the rear supports and there we were.  It did feel as though we gradually sunk in over the weekend and mostly on the down hill side so the level got worse, but we slept Ok and the washing up water stayed in the sinkand thats the main thing.

Come Sunday however we needed a pull not only off the field, but also out of the dents Oakley’s massive weight had created.  Next door farmer Mike arrived and with no fuss at all attached a chain to his tractor and pulled us off.  Once off the grassy bit Oakley soon picked up grip and was catching the tractor up up the steep drive.  Nice one.

The festival was very enjoyable but much of the action happened very late at night and was not entirely our scene.  We spent a lot of time hanging out with DCN friends past and current, including Chris and Selma who we seemd to feed at every meal!!