Project Thistle

I retired mid December 2018. Hence we move to the next chapter in our lives at Criftins

To date our field has been
A Playground for growing small (now bigger than me) boys.
A meeting place for various Car Clubs.
A Campsite.
A Menagerie (we still have loads of Chickens and two Sheep).

We are now thinking what next. We are going to let the Chickens naturally reduce to no more than a dozen and I need a creative outlet.... maybe it could lend itself to the odd camper again!

I also have fair bit of work to do in the Garden.
I bought a tow-able digger in the summer to dig out the overflow to the main pond, (we have a bit of a leak) and to lay some new drains and landscape part of the Garden etc. Which I will be doing in the new year, I am just not sue which new year!

One of these:

We want to open the garden up especially on the South side where the Chalet is, and we have also decided to fence off the drive to my workshop. The dogs tear off to the front gates barking at anything that moves so some side fencing will stop that.

Why do I mention a Towable digger in a Project post though?
Well the other thing it is going to be used for is to reshape part of the drive because I now need to get something quite big under the Carport, read on ....

We are very lucky living on the Welsh borders and we spend a lot of time in Snowdonia, we have also been missing our regular trips to Scotland. Now that the boys are old enough to hold the fort we can have a bit more freedom again.

We were pondering whether or not to buy a Caravan or a Motorhome then we started watching a series of YouTube Channels and we (I) realised it would be far more sensible and cost effective to build our own Camper Van.

One YouTube channel really stands out, that of Greg Virgoes' if there is a better how to build a CamperVan out there I have yet to find it!

As I mentioned in the last post we were also inspired by the Adventures of "Explorer Buddies" aka Florence and the Morgans and "Wandering Bird Adventures". I have put links to their channels over to the right and up or down? a bit  >>>>>>

I would like to introduce our next Project a LWB VW Crafter we have called "Thistle" that will become our (first) Camper Van.

As can be seen in the pictures Thistle is an ex Ambulance but with only 86,000 miles on the clock and with an Automatic gearbox he is quite a rare beast. He also came equipped with lots of equipment that I can re use or would have needed to buy such as side windows, roof vents, rear Aircon and Heater Air Suspension various cabinets etc. plus a 500KG hydraulic stretcher ramp that I hope to find a home for, it lifted my Motorbike with ease!

At the moment Thistle is undergoing 'pre op' checks, the patient has a few issues to sort out as a result of it being decommed from service and then I believe he was unused for 18 months.

There is wiring all over the shop to identify and remove or re purpose.  I did not receive a service history, no doubt he has been serviced regularly but for peace of mind I will be doing a full service anyway plus the usual jobs I do for every vehicle we buy.

Over the next few month I will post pictures and details of the work in progress here and may have a go at the odd YouTube effort myself

First job is a complete strip out back to a bare van. Aim is to take Karen somewhere in April for her birthday.

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