Hoorah! Hetty has returned to us! On 23rd January, we parted company with a large amount of cash and drove to collect Hetty. Her winter vacation was well and truly over and it was time for her to return back to us.
One could be forgiven for looking at Hetty and thinking ‘how much?’ but surely the price of a new bottom (well, bearers at this point) is priceless. That, along with the new walls, roof, and joy of joys, mud guards, made it worth every penny, especially when I think how many hundreds of hours we would have spent trying to get her watertight and looking half way decent.
The eagle eyed among you will notice, though, she is now sans windows and a door. The jury is currently 9 to 12 in favour of us buying new rather than attempting to reuse the old, and quite frankly, knackered stuff.
By the time we got Hetty back on Friday, it was too late to get stuck into anything too time consuming. That, and the fact it took us a fair while to reverse this mighty beast onto our driveway. I say we, when really I can only take credit for the rather excellent shouting and gesticulating part of this activity, as Dave was in charge of Hetty and well and truly in the drivers seat on this occasion.
So, we’ve had her back for two weekends. What on earth have you been doing, I hear you all cry?
Saturday 24th January found us mainly underneath Hetty, getting rid of the rust, ready to cover Hetty’s under carriage with wax oil. To say it was a messy job would be an understatement. Once Hetty’s bits were as rust free as we were going to get them, I left Dave to the joyous task of applying the waxoyl and went to have a shower. I cannot remember the last time it took so long for the water in a shower to run clear. Dave spent some time getting the consistency of his oil just right before setting to and giving Hetty a good going over.
On Sunday we had snow! Dave got a final coat of waxoyl in place and that was it for the weekend. Hetty is ready for a floor.
During the following week, we ordered what we needed and arranged for everything to be delivered on Saturday morning. So much for a lie in! With a nice early delivery, we set about laying the floor. Seven hours later, voila! The first layer of floor is down. It’s been painted on the underside, sealed down with mastic, screwed down and had a top coating of a PVA mix. In a nutshell, the day consisted of much measuring, cutting of wood, recutting of wood, painting, gluing, cussing every time Dave hit his head on a beam in his shed he keeps forgetting about and lots of ‘help’ from the dogs.
Sunday 7th, ‘up and at em’. We start by cutting the batons and fixing them in place along the length of Hetty. We work bit by bit, from front to back, adding in supporting batons as we go. Cutting the insulation to fit makes a hideous noise, reminding me of scraping fingernails down a blackboard. I was quite adept at fixing the funny metal looking tape across all of the joints (yes you can tell I have no idea what I am talking about – I think it’s a moisture barrier). Once that was done, it was time to cut and secure down the top layer of the floor. I say top layer, obviously we are going to put something nicer down once we are further into the build. I’m thinking shagpile.
All in all, I reckon we spent about six hours working on Hetty on Sunday. I was popping in and out of the house fairly regularly, to rekindle the relationship I have with my fingers and toes before they forgot who I was, as it was a tad chilly. We didn’t quite get it finished since we needed a tiny bit more baton.
But we had a productive weekend and really need to start thinking about the layout properly now, as it won’t be too much longer before this is an essential requirement!
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