And on to April - where for the first half of the month a lot of our time was taken up with car issues.
While the damage to the car was largely cosmetic (paintwork and some minor 'dinks') - we had been planning to trade it in, and as the damage would affect its trade-in value, we rang the insurance people. They advised it should be dealt with on a no-fault non-insurance claim basis, through Enterprise and Incident Management Solutions - so far, so good.
Then we had word that they were classing it as a 'total loss' (a Category N non-structural 'write-off') - basically, given the age of the car, they'd decided it wasn't worth 'repairing'. After some to-ing and fro-ing it also became apparent that we weren't insured to drive it, without a further MOT and repair work! All of which left us using the campervan as a 'run around' and finally having to make a decision over whether we were going to go for an electric car or not.
Decision made, and the middle of the month saw us with a full drive - the van, the old car (awaiting resolution of the 'total loss' claim before disposal), and our new electric car . . .
Next job, a car charger! (Wherein lies a future tale!)
In other news: we continued minor upgrades to the van (boxing in around the rear windows); I finished what I think should be my last consultancy project; our nearly
six-year old sourdough starter got a serious mould infestation and had to be binned; we rearranged some furniture, investing in behind-the sofa shelving (for my growing jigsaw collection!), moving the futon to the spare room from the Folly, and the 'kewb' chairs to the Folly from the spare room; and along the way I did a bit of Lego!
An investment was also made in new plug-in 'mobile' solar panels, which with mini inverters, will allow us to take advantage of sunny spots around the house.
They were a bit larger than we'd taken on board, and in the end we returned two of them, as we didn't think we'd have the space to accommodate all four. Busy trying them in different areas of the garden to find the best locations!
Towards the end of the month, with some dry weather, we decided to get rid of the yew tree off-cuts from last month's efforts, with a bonfire.
Well inferno, might be a better word for it - it turns out yew tree is very very flammable, and it went up like billy-oh!
Martin usually has a hose on stand-by, but it caught him unawares, and we had a bit of a panic before getting it under control. We now have a rather large scorched patch, and a burnt section of netting on the fruit cage (which we were dismantling anyway so not an issue.)
On the plus side it was all over very quickly, and it burnt away to nothing - one to take on board for any future bonfires though!
Finally, the end of the month saw us take our first 'proper' trip in the van - staying at a campsite in Llangollen (part of a trip to take Martin's parents to visit family in North Wales).
We had a mostly sunny, if breezy couple of days, with lots of walks - including out to Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (which it was a real experience to walk across).
It was a nice break - enjoyed a few beers and a very nice curry - and got to test the van in a 'real world' environment (rather than my parent's drive).
