Collection day!

Well after what seems like an age since placing the order and having come back from holiday suitably refreshed the day finally arrived to collect the much anticipated kit.

Van collected the night before (thanks Enterprise rent a car, excellent service highly recommended, top tip book as far in advance as you can, great deals to be had) and a detour via my Brother in laws to drop off a large MDF board for Christmas (another story!), I started the trek across to GBS in Nottinghamshire breaking the journey up in Chesterfield with a night stop at my parents house.

Saturday dawned a crisp cold clear day and I took this opportunity to bring my father along for the ride as I know he was extremely keen on the project and afterall he was a catalyst to this project many years ago.

We arrived at GBS and were warmly greeted with coffee and mince pies, Steve spent loads of time with us, taking us into the workshop to point out aspects of the build I was unsure about but also aspects I had not considered, information overload but gratefully received at the same time

Then we moved onto the kit and spent the next hour/half going through the kit and loading onto the van. Any doubts I had about the van being too big were dispelled and I would recommend to anyone hiring a van for collection go for the long wheelbase and also another tip - take plenty of packing, rope, foam anything soft really to pack around the chassis and so forth (an old duvet and pillows proved useful here!)

So from arriving after 10:00AM we finally started the trek back to Cheshire via Chesterfield just after 12:00PM I needed to get the van back to the hirer by 5:00pm so a tight deadline beckoned!

After dropping my father off and a welcome bacon and egg butty the last stage of the journey to Cheshire was tiresome with Christmas shopping traffic but I made it back to home where my Brother in law ably assisted me in unloading everything into the garage, I'll worry about finding homes for everything tomorrow, need to get that van back!