Preparing for MOT.

Well I can't believe another year has passed by and it's time for MOT again.
This time I needed to do some work to make sure all the running gear was up to date. Firstly with Nessie becoming 5 years old I thought it was a good idea to change the cambelt. It amazes me that people do not get this done on or before 5 years even if the milage is not up to average. We all spend money on insurance and I suppose changing the cam belt is exactly that. Whilst the cambelt was being changed I thought it made sense to have the water pump replaced as they are cheap as chips and saves it going in 10months and having to be replaced along with the cambelt.

Whilst driving recently I had also noticed a bit of a rumbling from the drivers front side. Further investigations led me to believe that I had a worn out wheel bearing. Pretty useless for only 25k. However with MHs standing for long periods I suppose a bit of condensation can do the damage. With the bearing replaced the van is like new. Not bad diagnostic work for a nurse!!

Now all I have to do is run nessie to the MOT station and x my fingers, then it's Off to France in 21 days.

midsummer music festival at Lincoln

Well it was another trip across to the east of England to the midsummer music festival held at Lincoln.
We set off on Friday after the boys had finished there school sports day and arrived at around 6ish.
We got the normal welcome from the motorhomefun.co.uk clan. We soon set up and met up with some of our friends, the Geordie's (bill and Chris) as well as Ray whom had travelled down from north Scotland for the event. Of course we also met up with some other funsters who we had met previously and some we hadn't met before.
Our pitch saw us park next to some newbies whom had two rather large dogs. In fact they were not just large but huge. George was taken aback by the dogs and soon got to know them well.
On the Friday night we spent the evening saying hello to everyone and shared a little drink, the weather was really nice allowing us to be able to sit outside and enjoy ourselves.
On the Saturday we had a wander around the show and looked at the customary new vans as well as of course all the accessories.
Then at night we went across to the events field to watch the entertainment. This was kicked off by the band Hermans Hermits. I know of them and I'm sure the older people at the show really enjoyed them. They were followed by a walk through time of music performed by some West end stage group. Unfortunately to much in the way of Vodka prevented me from giving any impression on how good they were. The rain came with a few showers but generally we were able to sit outside and watch the music in comfort. we followed this with a trip back to Rays van where we enjoyed a few more spirits before retiring to bed.
On Sunday I awoke to a banging head ache and a reminder as to why I do not normally have a drink. However no need to rush off this time as no work on the Sunday meant we were able to stay until late in the afternoon before trundling back across the country home.
We have decided to put nessie in to hibernation for a few weeks now as we try and get the house back in order. Our next trip will be across to France for some surf and kayaking in about 5 weeks. With the weather so poor at present I think we will wait until then. The school holidays are next so it's 6 weeks of kids arguing and complaining that they are bored, me and Nikki juggling work like mad to be able to look after them.
Still life without kids? how did we cope?
until next time.
panagah