Instead of sending cards this year we have made a donation to Crisis, http://www.crisis.org.uk/ but still want to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy 2010.

Here goes…

Playing cards in rainy Wiltshire having been to see Stonehenge on our way to North Devon. Our first night all together in Bob!

Next, at our campsite in Devon with Joolz’s van getting off to a smokin’ start!

It was the first time we’d tried the awning and because we were doing a fair bit of driving around we didn’t attach it.

We went into Exmoor to visit the village Helen’s parents lived in and had a picnic :

but only after a lengthy spell sat behind the locals!

We did the Devon-Essex run in one run which took about 10 hours as I had to keep stopping to rest.

After a day of washing and clearing out Bob we were off again to a woodland campsite in Suffolk. As we weren’t planning to move Bob for the week we fixed up the awning to Bob for the first time. It was very useful, especially as Helen’s sister and her family were camping on the plot next to us and we had lots of bikes and toys to store.

Overall then two weeks of enjoyable camping and 1200+ miles covered without a hitch, made all the sweeter after the problems we’ve had with Bob. She did us proud though and we’re thinking about Europe next year with Liesel!

I might do an inside-Bob one of these in the future…

This afternoon I thought of two things:

Sitting by the side of the road exactly a year ago waiting for the RAC to arrive for what was to be the first of many times, just hours after picking her up from the garage we bought her from and the feeling we had when we returned from our successful holidays in the summer (photos & details still pending here…).

Overall I don’t quite regret buying her!

Here’s to a much improved second-half of year 1 and a more consistently good year 2!

In fact, it’s about a 60 degree view of her because I couldn’t get around the sides properly to take enough pictures. Soon! To see all the pictures I took click on the 9-dot button at the bottom.

With the site ‘locked away’ I haven’t bothered to visit it myself and the last update is from early August when I promised photos and news from our summer adventures. I’ll see if, three months on, I can summon the enthusiasm for a back-dated post soon.

In the meantime Bob is at VW Bullibarn / Superbeetles having a new ignition barrel fitted and, tomorrow, her first MOT under our ownership. I await the news with baited breath and credit card quivering. On a positive note though they said that the gearchange I’d sorted was as good as they could have done and so there was no need for any pre-winter adjustment. Cool.

I’ve SORNed her for the winter and a Just Kampers cover will be soon, postage strikes permitting, be strapped in place for the duration. There are various jobs that need doing, from working on that passenger door lock some more to making sure the rear window rubber stays in when you open the hatch to fitting a leisure battery – but winter provides time.

I’m looking forward to next year in Bob. Now we’ve got her fundamentally sorted it should just be regular maintenance and the odd problem to sort and we can enjoy driving her more than we were able to during much of 2009.

I’ll post all the details of Stonehenge & Devon next weekend when we’re back from holiday part II in Suffolk.

In no particular order we:

• Checked the front brakes – all good.
• Connected the pipes on the water tank properly so they don’t leak.
• Worked out why the water pump wasn’t working (and identified that it will probably need a return valve).
• Made sure that the oil was OK and at the right level.
• Tested the fridge to make sure it works on gas – it does!
• Put draft excluder on the louvre windows to stop it blowing a gale through the back.
• Did a temporary fix on the clunking wiper arms that stopped the clunking and will keep them going until a permanent solution in the autumn.
• Fixed down the kick plate properly.
• Put together a small spares kit to carry around and checked that the jack worked.
• Did a few small bodywork repairs.
• Gave the windows a proper clean.
• Stopped the rear hatch from rattling.
• Re-aligned the passenger-side door after last month’s fence post accident.
• Made it possible to shut the engine bay lid without having to bang it to with your fist.

In addition to all that we sorted out various electrical issues. The electric windscreen washers have never worked. We were told when we bought Bob that it just needed some water in it, but we filled it up and it still didn’t work. When we pulled back the panel to look this is what we found – a mass of wires and a washer motor hanging loose behind the front panel. The motor was broken. It was simply too old and weak to pump the water up to the washer jets. We went and bought a replacement and fitted it on a hand-made bracket to stop it rattling around.

The wiring was something else. To the left  is a picture of the washer switch, which as you can see had been wired in using speaker cable. Not wanting to leave the dashboard wiring in such a state we went about rewiring various sections and re-routing wires which seem to have been put in without any thought to keeping things manageable and/or tidy. Behind the fuse box we found two still- live wires that had simply been cut off and left untaped and potentially dangerous.

To add to the wiring woes, we found that one of the inside strip lights was overheating and burning its circuits when you switched it on. Thankfully we never used the light, although if we had I hope the amount of smoke it gave off would have alerted us to the danger.

In all, we removed a substantial number of wires that were either dangerous, too long, incorrect or, as was the case a number of times, simply not needed anymore as the components that they had once served had been removed and the wires left for posterity.

Since we’ve owned Bob the number of shortcuts we have found to have been made during her restoration has been alarming but accepted with light-hearted sighs, but when it involves dodgy and potential very dangerous electrics it’s difficult not to have a sense of humour bypass.

On the plus side Bob ran beautifully and barring a loss of main-beam for a stretch on the way home (a loose cable on the fuse board) gave us no problems whatsoever – a fantastic improvement over last time I drove her to Stratford way back in January.

Then we came home via McDonalds, eating our meal at the table in the back of Bob. Fast food has never been such a chilled experience!