and today i have mostly been...

[Doggy]

I'll raise you 50m of untreated fencing and daughter's 107 in need of a water pump.

Eric,can't you use a Bypass relay kit and standard wiring and save a few quid over the dedicated wiring? I fitted one to my BMW when i wired up the towbar,o.k. it doesn't turn off the rear fog when towing or cancel the rear parking sensors but i've never once towed in the fog and as you say you can turn off the pdc system,far cheaper option.

That's a decent suggestion. TBH I don't know much about these new fangled towing gismos so the dedicated version seemed lower risk, but it's about 60 quid steeper.

Think I might try the universal bypass relay - if it doesn't work I can probably recover most of the cost selling it on.

Know anyone wanting to give away a car transporter trailer big enough for the C5?
My research so far tells me a decent new one is north of £4k and good* used examples look tired and still cost about 3 grand.

[grasmere59]

Do you need a trailer Eric,what about a towing dolly something like this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EX-AA-RAC-TO ... Sw4GJdCP2n

[Doggy]

Not legal on the continent, (other than for recovery work). You can't legitimately use one for everyday transport.
Same goes for "Smart" cars etc on drawbars that some of the motorhome fraternity favour.
Trailer is the only thing guaranteed to be legal assuming the setup is OK on both max weights and gross train weight.

[grasmere59]

Damned Brexit

[steve_earwig]

Eh?

Damned government

[Welly]

Doggy, seen yesterday:



Image courtesy of: Open Roads Forum

[steve_earwig]

[Doggy]

No.

But I did consider.....



or



Large 5th wheel trailers have a knack of flipping over and taking even the biggest of pick up trucks with them



hence the growing popularity of 'highway tractors' as tow vehicles in the americas
"Tail aint gonna wag this dawg"
There's even a few this side of the pond.

On a more serious note, I seem to have purchased a trailer



Big enough to cart the C5 around behind the camper, arrives in a about 3 weeks.

Shakedown cruise planned to Devon & Cornwall for August bank holiday / week, (what traffic)?
Then off to sunnier climes for a longer trip in September.

[steve_earwig]

Sorry, missed your post there (this board = Mind you, I've been a bit busy and ain't been about much.

I saw quite a few of those 5th wheel jobbies when I was in the States, they look the part but do seem to negate the value of a pick up. Maybe the scale is easy to remove...

Congrats on the trailer, I hope the test run goes as planned (and you don't have to reverse it... )

Sp anyway, not much today (weeding, weeding and more weeding) but last week Ollie had a haircut

That's our Brilliant vet Mirela and her son Ian.



Mary also got a bit of a fettle


I never used to think much of that old table

Kittens are fine, busily rushing about, into everything and generally being hooligans


Although they still find time to be cute


So yesterday morning I was outside my bedroom on the upstairs terrace, planning my day kind of thing, when I heard a crunching noise over my head - there's only bunch of hornets building a nest outside my bedroom Right above the door in the apex, overt the light and behind a beam. I ain't having that! So I rushed off, grabbed a 2m long lump of wood and, using the light as a rest, I snookered the buggers.

Thunk! Bits and pieces of nest and irate hornets start falling on me.

OH SHIP!!

Of course, I'm properly attired in shorts and t-shirt.

Rush inside, trip over fan, recover, slam the door and latch it.

Fortunately the brood chamber bit landed on the light. After about half an hour things seemed to have calmed down so I risked a look. There's a few hornets buzzing about but on the remains is the queen (hard to miss, she's massive). So I got my cue, lined up on her and...

Bonk! In, slam and latch. I'd moved the fan obviously.

I left it alone after that, I could still see hornets coming and going so I went with mate Max to his local garden centre and, on his recommendation, 1 big tin of long range spray (up to 4 meters) which he said was ok for subduing them, then you move in with the other tin I bought (only a 2 meter range) which will finish them off. He also lent me his bee keeper's hat and told me to wait until the evening when they'll all be home. In the end though I had a quick look in the evening and there were just 2 hornets mooching about, so I gave then a good spray of the good stuff. This morning there were no hornets about, so I got a stick, knocked the brood chamber on the deck and took some pictures.




(The grey nest at the top is an old paper wasp nest. I didn't see a huge hornet in the remains (there's just a few hornets and some larvae) so I guess I missed the queen.)

And then I stomped the crap out of it. It's the only way to be sure

[Doggy]

Them retrievers will be the better for a trim in this heat, how old are they now?
Kittens look a fair bit bigger, guess that enables more extreme shenanigans.
Dealt with a few wasps nests over the years but nothing like 'your' hornets. Well done, hope that's the end of the story.
(I have this mental image of an emergency motion being discussed at the Hornet Security Council about the Jastrebarsko vespacide incident).
Sure you'll be fine.

[steve_earwig]

Mary's 12, Ollie's 9. Ollie needs doing as he's been mistreated and his fur's messed up, Mary has her summer coat now but poor Ollie appears to have his winter coat all year round.

The kittens aren't too bad really, they have each other to duff up and the fixtures and fittings seem to be getting off lightly. Still, the odd flower pot has hit the deck. In other feline news, Max had a mostly feral black female camp out on his front terrace, it's a complete mess (lots of stuff but nowhere to put it) and she found a basket to have kittens in. SInce then she's effed off but she left a kitten behind, a tiny black and white female. Max isn't really a cat person but he's looking after her and we just took her to the vet's for a worm pill and a check over. The verdict is she's a bit small but she's a survivor. It seems like it's a bumper year for kittens

I've been worrying about the revenge of the hornets, I've been sleeping downstairs since just in case they're waiting for me...

[Doggy]

I guess retrievers last a bit longer than I realised. Our first dog when I was a kid was a 'flat coated retriever' which I think is a pretentious name for a labrador/retriever cross. He lasted till about 11 years old which was a good few years more than the following 3 labradors. Anyways yours look fine and hopefully you'll have them a while yet.

I guess your kittens came as a set and will have to stay that way to limit collateral damage, sounds like it's working out.

Meanwhile, I've finally found the elusive 'leisure batteries' fitted to the camper - no less than 3 x 140 Ah/1600Wh Exide 'Equipment Gel' lumps weighing in at 47kg a piece. Last winter, both these and the starting battery went completely flat - I had to replace the starting battery in May. So today, I set about doing a discharge test to see if these were knackered or not. Short version, they need replacing - my test shows a combined capacity of about 125 Ah or about 30% of what it should be.

Since I don't know what went wrong over the winter, (the solar panels should have kept them topped up) and they're £280 each I'm thinking I'll monitor things more closely this year. I've managed to get a new storage site about 7 miles away as opposed to 20 miles last year, so checking on it weekly or fortnightly should be possible.

[steve_earwig]

Ouch! I guess for that sort of money it's worth some close monitoring. Does it really need that sort of power?

Did it snow on your solar panels maybe?

Btw PV batteries would be even more expensive

Neither Ollie or Mary are thoroughbreds, I'm not sure what else they have in their bloodlines but I'm hoping they might live a bit longer. Mary's mum Betty made it to 12, she was 100% golden retard. Mary's sister Vicky only made it to 6 but sadly her heart had a manufacturing defect.

[Doggy]

Don't really know how much battery capacity I need - it's a question of how long you want to be able to survive comfortably without a campsite / mains power. It won't actually let you run much off the batteries - lighting, tv, 12V sockets is about it. It's got an inverter but using it for anything apart from the awning motor and windscreen roller blind seems to be verboten.
Yesterday I turned on the external lights, and all 33 of the internal LED jobbies, which didn't actually draw anything from the batteries until I disabled the solar charger, then it drew a massive 5.5A. 12 hours later at approaching 50% discharged, I stopped the test & extrapolated the results.
Trouble is what documentation I have implies it's essential to match the charger/inverter/solar to the batteries - a job for experten.

It's probably a blessing if your dogs aren't thoroughbreds, likely to last longer and cost a sight less to run. Our cavaliers pegged it at 8, 10 & 9 years old, the very first not-really-a-pedigree version made it to 16.

[Doggy]

Reflecting on how quiet things have got hereabouts.

Collected my new trailer today & stashed it in the campervan's storage spot for now. (Overpriced few square yards of derelict WW2 airfield c/w fences & cctv - someone had the luck or foresight to snap up).





The gutless piece-of-shitreon certainly 'feels' like it's pulling something and you can't help but notice it's a LOT wider than the car, (2350 vs 1860 + mirrors). Makes me realise how awkward caravans must be to tow. Empty trailer weighs 700kg with nose weight of about 70kg - enough to really affect the rear suspension. I'm starting to think it might have a broken spring, or two.

On a positive note there were no rattles or bangs, in fact I didn't hear a sound with the car windows open.

Arranged insurance cover for it, (£££ ). They're happy* with it living on my drive, so long as it has coupling lock/wheel clamp/datatag.
The van's still there at present, but I'll swap 'em over soon.