Picked up The Motorhome

'Twas a 06.00am start this morning - the reason being that I wanted to take the dogs for a good walk as we were going to be leaving them on the boat all day.  I knew there was going to be a bit of hanging around when we got to Brownhills in Newark ... and they are not too good at that!

We had to get from Stone to Newark.  The first train was the 8.00am to Stoke, then change for the next train to Derby, which was the very strange thing below ... one self propelled carriage!

Next was Derby to Nottingham, then finally Nottingham to Newark. 

We rang Brownhills on approach to the station and they sent someone down to pick us up. The next few hours were spent going over the motorhome yet again, having a long free lunch in their restaurant and of course paying for the van, followed up with the chat with the Barclays Bank fraud sqaud (Indian Division) as to why such a large sum was going through in one hit!   No probs with the whys and wherefores chat, but trying to understand the chappie in the Indian call centre was hard going ... it took about 30 mins.  Then it was a quick spend on some bits and pieces, levelling rams, Melamine dinner set etc.  Finally a farewell to our very nice salesman, Jon (and handover chap, Graham) and we were on the road ...

It only had a quarter of tank of diesel in the van ... I didn't think they would fill it, I had knocked them down on the price, plus got a new tv installed in the bedroom, plus a two year (limited) warranty, plus 10 days free insurance till we get our own!

So we filled it up at the first servo.....gulp!!  Have to put some red diesel in it next time...(Joke)

It drove perfectly in pretty shitty conditions, it's going to be fun!

Back to the boat, the dogs had everything crossed ... they are such good boys, so I took them for a nice walk in the dark.

Tomorrow we will go shopping toget a calor gas bottle and also to try and find something to protect the motorhome carpets.  The rear carpets unclip so I can remove them, but in the lounge area they are fitted (and a lovely cream colour!) so I dont want to get them too dirty!