Winter returns

Today we awoke to a winter wonderland - and it is decidedly colder. This is bad news for me - wanting to do more concreting and trying to keep the beer warm. I'm not too worried about the beer - it's due to be bottled anyway.

Yesterday was a deluxe white van man day. After driving to Wick to get the 5p per litre off diesel (and double club card points - oooh!) I drove to Thurso to pick up a load of animal feed, cement, sand and a tonne of sand and gravel mix. Eeeeeh manly or what.

But the geezer with the fork lift didn't put the bag in far enough - and it was a bit of a struggle keeping the back doors closed. In fact at one point I had to stop and scoop as much of the sand and gravel towards the front of the van cos the back doors were straining.

And...

I'd put the cement and the sand and gravel all around the back door - the side door being clogged up with animal feed - and this meant that a substantial amount of weight was behind the back axle - which made driving usually ..erm..fun - as the back was lifting the front wheels off the road. So I had to stop to redistribute the weight.

And...

The engine started over-heating. This was coupled with the failure of the cab heating. So we've run out of water somehow - leak? busted water pump? blown gasket? Bollux. I'll have a look at it this morning. The van is booked in for MOT next week so it'll be sorted soon enough - but it's more evidence of nude swimming.

So the main jobs today: bottle the beer (Muntons best bitter), investigate the van, empty the van, and stick metal rods through the floor of the lean to - to anchor the walls and floor.

Emptying the van is fun. The tonne bag will be tied to a tree, and then the van drives off. Hey presto!