We had such a busy day yesterday I was exhausted by the evening. Tom and I went to B&Q first thing in the morning and bought lots of things we need for the caravan. All rather boring things like, grease and silicone spray but there is so much maintenance to do on caravans after the winter, especially this prolonged winter we have had. We arrived at the storage yard, which is an hours drive away and we got the caravan hitched up fine which was a relief as Tom has been really worried about the jockey wheel at the front as it was playing up last year. He wanted to order a new one but I persuaded him that it was nicer to keep the original one if we could. All seemed fine through on the journey to my Dad's house and it felt so wonderful to being seeing our lovely caravan in the wing mirror again as we drove along.
We arrived at my Dad's house at about 12.30 and my sister was already there. We parked outside next door to unhitch the caravan and that is when the problems started! The jockey wheel wouldn't raise enough to lift the caravan off the tow bar. The thread seemed to have gone on the winder and after an age of trying the bottom of the jockey wheel dropped off into the road. There was a fraught time while my sister and I held up what felt like 3 tonnes of caravan while Tom struggled to try and re assemble it. A helpful delivery driver slowed down and shouted "Do you need a hand?" "No we're fine thanks mate!" Tom shouted back as my sister and I continued to hold up the caravan like contestants from "Britain's Strongest Man" In the end we decided we would have to guide the caravan back into the drive, whilst holding up the front of it. To cut a very long story short, we finally got the caravan into place, the legs were put down and apart from aching shoulders and backs and one damaged shrub there seemed to be no harm done. We had planned to try to check all the water pipes yesterday, but after doing my Dad's shopping and all the other little jobs we have to get done while we were there it was 5 o'clock and we were too exhausted to start anything else. I couldn't resist trying out the flags on the front though.
After we got home, fed all the animals and birds and had eaten our evening meal I ordered a new jockey wheel. Tom to his eternal credit didn't say "I told you so" once. I had been looking forward to Springwatch but fell asleep and missed most of it. Oh well, it's another day today, the sun is shining and we have to go back to my Dad's to start work on the water pipes. I'm going to write a list of all we have to do and just try and work our way through it.
I was so tired yesterday I forgot to set up the wildlife camera but youngest son was up early at 5 o'clock and he sat by his window watching the fox club playing in the garden. He said it was having a fine old time running about and rolling on the ground. It it's a shame it doesn't seem to have any brothers and sisters to play with, I may buy it a couple of toys! Have a lovely day everyone, the weather is set to get a bit better which is really something to look forward to. xx
